


Sails Away, to Far and Beyond

by laurie_ky



Category: Stargate - All Series, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Universe
Genre: Ancient Tech, Ascension, Drowning, F/F, Fever, Hypnotism, Kidfic, Loss of a Baby, M/M, Nightmares, Post season two of SGU, Sexsomnia, Sharing a Bed, Sleepwalking, Snuggling, body swapping, comfort in late night mess halls, dream memories of being drugged, dream memories of the beginning of a sexual assault, eventual bonding, eventually a lot of of other stargate characters, memories of torture and death, mild physical dominaton, unwitting dub-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-29 13:18:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 228,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurie_ky/pseuds/laurie_ky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prologue: Eli's come up with Plan B, in order for all of them to survive the trip to the next galaxy, but Rush and Young are going to have to work together in order to live. They'll deal with the consequences later of what they both are going to have to do.</p><p>At Stargate Command, something forces the iris open. A strange entity stumbles through, connecting Destiny with Earth's survival.</p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Prologue**

“Colonel?” 

He opened his eyes, but they drifted shut again. 

“Crap. Colonel Young?”

He opened his eyes again and saw a young man with tousled dark hair, stocky, dressed in a gray sweatshirt. He was standing below Young, his good-natured features solemn. 

Eli. 

He glanced around and confirmed that he was still in the stasis pod, open to the corridor. Eli was alive, that was great news. He felt the tension in his shoulders relax. 

“What's our status, Eli? Did it take three years or a thousand?” 

Eli made a face, one side of his mouth quirking up into a rueful expression. “Actually, it's only been a week since Destiny turned you into a popsicle. I need to talk to you. And to Rush.”

“Rush? Where is he?” He stepped down and quickly surveyed the corridor. It was just Eli and him standing there in the dim light. He motioned for Eli to come with him as he jogged down to where he had left Rush in a stasis pod, the man's hands clasped together, eyes closed as the ship had frozen him into stillness. 

With a sense of relief, he saw that Rush was safely enclosed in the pod. He wasn't roaming the ship, doing god knows what. It was odd to see Rush this way. Even when the other man had been just sitting quietly at a console or leaning forward gripping the observation deck railing with both hands, attention focused outwards, there had always been a sense of contained energy about him. Except... except for those times when he'd been in the neural interface chair, where he'd seemed more dead than alive. Or in a coma or passed out from exhaustion.

Or, his conscience whispered, the time you beat him into unconsciousness and abandoned him, flung like a discarded rag doll onto the hot sand of a desert planet. Or when you choked him till he passed out, white hot anger cooling before Rush had stopped breathing all together. Everett had pushed him away so he wouldn't have to look at Rush's deceiving, lying, manipulative face. He'd been a limp tangle of limbs for long minutes, lying on the deck of the wrecked alien ship. 

He'd looked so small that way. He never seemed like a small man when he was confronting Young or losing his temper, or coming up with solutions to their never-ending problems with the ship or their enemies.

“Colonel Young?” Eli gripped his forearm. “Before I uncork Rush, I wanted to give you a heads up.”

“Go ahead.”

“See, here's the thing. The last pod, it can't be salvaged—”

“You're sure.”

“Yeah, trust me. It's toast.”

“I know you did your best, Eli. Sometimes the deck is just stacked against you. Look, you're going to take my pod. These people are going to need you, when Destiny makes it to the new galaxy.”

“Uh, they're going to need you too! And this isn't why I woke you up, just so you could do the self-sacrifice thing. I've got a plan!” Exasperation was plain on Eli's face. “I thought you should know what was up.”

Everett eyed him. Eli shrugged. “I need Rush to take a look at the database. His Ancient is better than mine, and, okay, I know I said I was smarter than he is, and I'm not taking that back, but it wouldn't hurt to have another pair of eyes looking this over. He _is_ brilliant. Don't tell him I said that, okay?”

“You think you can trust what he tells you?” 

“He doesn't want anybody to die, Colonel. Not if it can be helped.” Everett saw that belief play across Eli's face. His chin had jutted up, and his stance had tightened. He must think that Young was going to argue that Rush was a heartless pragmatic bastard who would cut everybody else's throat just to save his own. 

Right. Everett might have believed that once about Rush, but that was before he'd watched him disarm the bomb planted on Lisa Park's back, warning everyone else to stay on the ship. Heard him comforting her. Before he'd seen Rush's eyes after he'd come back from the trek across the rocky plateau after tracking down and killing that Lucian Alliance son-of-a-bitch who'd killed Ginn and Amanda Perry. Pragmatic bastard, sure. Heartless, no. 

He might make an exception if it came down to either Young or him, though. And despite everything the two of them had been through together, Everett couldn't trust the man. 

“Eli. Just what is this plan?”

“Two people can share one pod. It's sort of a last measure kind of thing, but it's possible. Probably. In a theoretical way.” Eli raised his eyebrows, his expression almost comical. 

“But you're not sure,” Everett said slowly.

“I'm mostly sure. I can show you the statistical probabilities for an optimal versus non-optimal outcome--”

“Please don't. Sounds like you're giving it a thumbs up. Good enough for me. But Rush and I are going to share a pod.”

“Colonel? Um, are you crazy?” Eli looked disbelieving. Everett didn't blame him.

“No. Eli, I'm just going to motivate the man to do his best work by putting us together. I think that'll increase my own chances at surviving. And I don't want you two sharing. These people,” he made a gesture towards the other pods, “are going to need at least one of you when they get out of these pods.”

“In other words, don't put all of your eggheads in one stasis pod. Okay, I see your point. But. There's going to be, like, no personal space in that pod. And you know Rush and personal space.” 

“We'll manage, Eli.”

“I got a bad feeling about this.”

“Eli.”

“Just sayin',” Eli sing-songed.

“Wake him up.” Eli walked up to the control panel and pushed a button. The blue light within dimmed and the door slid up, leaving the occupant exposed. A moment later, Rush was staring down at him, dark brown eyes vague and confused and honest for a change as he blinked several times. Everett told himself wryly that he might as well enjoy that look while he could. Soon enough the secretiveness that defined Nicholas Rush would return to the man's features and once again he'd have the devil's own time deciphering what was really going on inside Rush's head. 

 

* * *

 

Rush's gazed sharpened. “Mr. Wallace, Colonel. What's the problem?” He quickly came down the steps and stood before his stasis pod, eyebrows raised.

Everett wasn't surprised at Rush's question. The man was quick and good at reading people. 

Eli said, “Problem, yes. So, we're going with Plan B. And you're not gonna like it.” 

“The last pod was hopeless, then?” Rush pushed his long hair back and tucked a few strands behind his ear. Everett crossed his arms and waited for Eli to finish briefing Rush. He expected Rush would make a case for Eli to share a pod with him, not Rush. That wasn't happening. He wanted Eli to have the best shot at making it through the void. 

“Yes. But you know how we threw out the idea of sharing pods? Not so much anymore.”

“I see.” Rush glanced at him, and Young nodded. “You've evaluated some new data?”

“Yes. According to the database, sharing _is_ possible. It's not preferred, though. Might have some drawbacks, so it was uh, considered only appropriate for people who were really close to each other. And only in an emergency.”

“Close to each other.” Rush's eyes flicked between Eli and Everett. 

“The term I read translates to 'kindred souls.''' Eli attempted to look nonchalant, but by the way Rush narrowed his eyes towards the kid, he wasn't buying the act. “You should take a look,” Eli said.

“Yes, obviously.” He walked briskly to the console at the head of the corridor and beckoned Eli over. He looked at Everett. “Colonel? You've decided, have you not, which two of us will share?”

“You and me, Rush.”

“I see.”

“Not going to complain about it?”

“That would be pointless. It's too risky to put Eli and I together. For the sake of the crew, an' all.” Rush's eyebrows quirked up, and a small smile that bordered on being a smirk tugged at his lips. 

Everett worked to keep his own expression calm. Rush could be such a smart ass, but although that was a dig at their former agreement to get along – not that Rush had kept it, not until Everett had to beat the shit out of him again – he wasn't wrong. 

He played it straight. “That's right. For the sake of the crew.”

“We're not kindred souls, Colonel.”

“Not even close.”

Rush had made room for Eli at the console, and Eli was bent over it, working the controls.

“Aye, too right.”

“Not going to insist that Eli and I share?”

“As I said, that would be pointless. There's risks to sharing, even if we don't yet know what exactly. O' course we want Eli to have the best chance at making it through.”

Everett shot Rush a look. It was just so damn hard to read the man, sometimes. Everett honestly couldn't tell if that had been Rush's brand of sarcasm or sincerity. It usually took something huge to happen to Rush before his usual guardedness was disrupted enough for Everett to see the man's true emotions.

“So, I'll let you two work. I'm going to report in to Homeworld Command.”

Looking up, Eli said, “Really? Do you think they'll still have someone on stones duty? They won't be expecting us for three years.”

“Mr. Wallace, if I could please have your attention back? “ Rush said softly. He usually did speak softly. Unless he was having a meltdown. Still, softly spoken words from him usually carried a razor's edge of disdain within the polite phrasing. Eli was more than used to the man's ways, though. 

“Um, cool your jets.” He fiddled with the controls for another few seconds. “Here's the section I wanted you to review. Colonel, if you do get through, can you find out how my mother's doing?”

“I'll try, Eli. Rush, any messages?”

Rush didn't bother to answer him, just shook his head slightly.

Of everybody on the ship, only Rush had declined to use the stones to say goodbye to anyone who cared about him back on Earth. He'd never asked for personal leave when he'd been based on Icarus, either. 

If it hadn't been for Amanda Perry, Young might have believed there hadn't been anybody in Rush's life back on Earth who he gave a damn about, or who gave a damn about him. 

He left them to make his report, walking down the cold dark corridors, the flashlight only giving glimpses of the muted colors of the floor and walls. Destiny was mostly asleep, like the crew. Young expected that the three of them would need to go into the stasis pods within a few hours, in order to not dip into the reserves of power Destiny needed to take them to the next galaxy.

 

* * *

He was back within an hour, having left a note for whoever swapped with him to just stay put in the stones communication room. He'd spoken with both O'Neill and David Telford. O'Neill was his usual sardonic self and let Everett know that the uproar about the meaning of the structure Rush had found within the cosmic background radiation was still hot and heavy. The hand of God, or an intelligence present at the beginning of time, Everett didn't really have an opinion about who or what was behind it.

Plenty of people who knew about the Stargate program wanted to claim what Rush had brought to light for their own political or religious agenda. There was also a strong faction who accused Rush of pulling a hoax in order to gain support to continue the mission. Funding another attempt to dial into Destiny was going to be expensive. Icarus type planets were almost non-existent. Rush's detractors accused him of falsifying the Ancients' data in order to keep Destiny a priority.

And Rush had lied before. Everett had never gotten why Rush had planted the false information about an Icarus planet in Destiny's database. Within the year he had told the crew it would take to reach it, the real story would have come out. 

He just didn't understand the man. But ever since the truth about the bridge had come out, Rush had been cooperating. But whether or not he was using that to cover up some other agenda, Everett didn't have a clue. The best he could do was to keep a close eye on the guy. 

David brought the conversation back to Rush as they sat together in the stones room at Homeworld Command. After Everett had given him an update on the current problem with the stasis pod, David had dismissed the other people in the room. 

He put a hand on Everett's shoulder for a moment. “I'm going to give you a head's up, Everett. If Destiny's crew makes it across the void in one piece, then I think there's going to be a formal inquiry into Rush's actions on Icarus and on the ship.”

“Who's pushing for this, David? Besides you, that is.”

“He's pissed off the wrong people. And that's entirely on him.”

“And you. What's your beef with him?”

“He knows more than he's saying about how the other version of me died.”

“He wasn't even there. Scott can vouch for him. And you've been at him since you first used the stones and showed up on Destiny. You already had a history together. Not a good one, apparently.”

“Sorry, Everett. That's classified.”

“He's a lot of work, I'll grant you that, but he's saved the crew's lives. We need him.”

“He put them in danger in the first place. That hasn't been forgotten or forgiven.”

“By Mrs. Armstrong, I bet. She's got a lot of pull.”

“She lost her daughter and her husband because of that bastard. She's not alone. Don't try to defend him, Everett. The best thing you could do for yourself and your people is to let him get thrown to the wolves.”

“Throw him to the wolves. You think that's the kind of man I am?”

“How did he get left on that planet, Everett? Stuck in a rockslide, was it? Yes, I think you can cut him loose. You've done it before. Don't let him take you down with him when he goes under. And he's going to go under. The bastard's gonna be done and when we're able to send new crew back and forth to Destiny, he's going to be out. Prison is where he's going to end up.”

“Not if I can help it. But give it your best shot, David. We'll take this back up in three years.”

“He's not worth it, Everett. He's going to just keep screwing you and the crew over. He's dangerous and he needs to be taken out.”

“He's a member of my crew and he's under my protection.”

“He won't let you protect him. He never lets anybody protect him.”

“Like you? You resent him because of that?”

“Classified, Everett.”

“I might not know the details, but you wanted him to do something your way and he refused, didn't he? And that still pisses you off.” 

“You can't tell me he hasn't done the same to you.”

“He's a lotta work. But I think he's worth it. And now that I think about it, it's been quite a while since he's said something arrogant. Actually, he's been pretty quiet.”

“A leopard doesn't change his spots; I'll never believe Nicholas Rush has stopped being a user and actually cares about those people on Destiny.” 

“I'll be the first to say he's made mistakes. No. He was the first to say he'd made mistakes. He can be a pain in the ass, and I don't have a clue how his mind works, but he's a good man at heart. I'm not wrong about that. And you might remind Chloe's mother that it was Rush who saved her daughter from those aliens. He took a risk with his own life to do that.”

“He's got you snowed. I can't believe that you actually were going to stay with him on Destiny.”

“I would have continued the mission. I told him that.”

“I just wanted to shake you and the rest of the crew that chose to stay. And I'm sure he did something to cause all of you – well, your doubles – to not make it to Earth.”

“I don't believe that for a minute. You didn't see him, well, the other Rush, the one that went down with the earlier Destiny, you didn't see his face, his eyes, when he stumbled off the shuttle. He was devastated, David.”

“Well, we'll never know what actually happened, will we. Everett, just watch yourself. I consider us friends, even after everything with Emily, and I don't want to see you get burned. Rush will be dealt with, don't get in the way. Please.”

“You know I'm not gonna step aside and let him be railroaded. He's under my authority and I'll deal with any discipline issues.”

“Have you done that? If so, it's been conspicuously absent from your reports.”

“I would say he's been on probation. But after we make it out of the void, I'll take it up with Wray and Homeworld Command about any charges. Hopefully that will keep your allies out of our affairs.”

“You're compromised when it comes to him. After this conversation I see that very clearly. You need to step back and let this inquiry happen, Everett. He won't be on your conscience that way.”

“Not gonna happen, David. He's mine to deal with, mine to protect.”

“Are you even hearing yourself?”

“You owe him, you know. If it hadn't been for him coming to me about the glimpse of your memories he had when you were using his body, you'd still be the Lucian Alliance's favorite bitch.”

“That's irrelevant.”

“You know, I didn't believe him about you. I thought he was the mole and was trying some scheme. If I'd believed him I would never have let him play secret agent man. He was a math professor, for heaven's sake. He wasn't trained to deal with the Lucian Alliance. They tortured him.”

“Everett, that changes nothing.”

“Oh, I think it does. I got Varro's take on it. He was very impressed with Rush. He withstood being shocked over and over for a long time. Even after Rush finally admitted who he was and they forced him to help with dialing the ninth chevron, he just played along with them. He didn't give them any new information on how to dial us without tearing apart the planet.”

“So he's a tough little bastard. I know that, okay. I think he's always been that way, hiding it behind that harmless eccentric professor facade. I keep telling you, Everett. He can be dangerous.”

“But not to Destiny's crew. Not even to me. I'll grant you he was a manipulative little shit before. Maybe he'll be one again. But he doesn't want to harm me. He never did. It wasn't him who threw the first punches between us, and I think a part of him kept holding back. He killed a Nakai with his bare hands, you know. He never turned that level of ferocity against me. He should have because I can't say the same about myself towards him. But that's over. I'm gonna learn to understand that man and get him to trust me if it's the last thing I do.”

“You won't. I can see that I'm not going to get you to let him go. Just, watch yourself.”

“I'm gonna get back. Eli and Rush are probably done with the database.”

“I can't believe you're gonna share a pod with Rush.”

“As long as Eli doesn't take any kino footage, it'll be fine. Goodbye, David.”

He'd picked up the stone again and found himself back on Destiny. God. David and Rush. What he wouldn't give to hear the story on those two. And neither of them would ever say a word to him about what had happened between them.

* * *

 

He thought about what he'd told David as he walked back to the stasis pod corridors. Maybe he'd overstated his case. Because despite what he'd told Telford, Rush had a way of making him doubt the man's motives, even when it was more likely that he hadn't been trying to pull a fast one. 

The Rush who had returned from the wrecked Destiny had seemed like he was being honest with Young. He'd been traumatized, shaken. He hadn't appreciated any of the smart ass looks or comments his Rush had made about their fucked up situation. 

And yet...

When his Rush had run back through the gate right before the other Destiny fell into the star and broke apart, falling to his knees on the deck, he couldn't help but think how convenient it had been that they could scavenge the parts they needed from the dying Destiny. The mission would continue. 

He'd looked down at Rush's face and just knew that the man was keeping secrets from him. But the other Destiny being unable to handle the stresses from dialing the gate within the star couldn't have possibly been his fault. How could the other Rush have engineered a jump in time?

A fucking jump in time. 

Rush was a lot of things, but he was no Time Lord. He couldn't call up a solar flare, like some space wizard. That flare must not have been caught by Eli or Brody or Volker or Park. Unless, he'd blinded the sensors? No, that was too crazy to even contemplate. And it assumed that the rest of the science team were all morons, which they were not. Even if he was sure from the expression on Rush's face sometimes that the man thought they were. 

Rush was by himself at the console when Everett walked over. Rush looked over at him, his attention no doubt caught by the sound of Everett's footsteps echoing in the empty corridor. Immediately he stepped back a good four feet, his hands held up in front of him. 

“Colonel?” he asked, his wariness evident in his posture and tone of voice.

“Relax. I'm sure it's against some galactic code to belt a Time Lord.”

“Have you stopped by Brody's still then, for a wee drop?” He reached up to massage his shoulder muscle. Everett had seen him do that a thousand times. Never seemed to help loosen his muscles, though. 

“No, I haven't,” Everett said. Although if this scheme worked and both he and Rush lived he planned on knocking back a couple of shots. Hell, maybe he'd even drag Rush with him to Destiny's makeshift bar.

“An' Time Lord?” Rush asked skeptically.

“Get Eli to explain what a Time Lord is.”

“Oh, I know that well enough. Why are you calling me one?”

“Never mind. Are you two ready to proceed?”

“Soon. If you don't care?” he indicated the console where Everett was standing. Apparently he wanted Everett to grant him personal space. Perversely, Everett wanted to do the opposite. 

“Just get over here. We're going to be in that pod together for three years. I think you can manage to stand next to me.” 

Rush's expression turned blank. He moved carefully, eyes watchful, until he and Everett were shoulder to shoulder. His breathing was a little fast and if he couldn't settle down they might have a problem. Well, better to test that out here and not deal with Rush having a panic attack within the small space of the pod. 

“I said to relax. Consider this a dry run before we step foot in the pod together.” He put an arm around Rush's shoulders and pulled him a little closer. 

Rush scowled and tried to step sideways, but only succeeded in bowing his body away from Everett. “We don't need any bloody practice,” he hissed.

“Oh, I think you do. Look, just try to relax.” He pulled Rush back against his side again.

“Get t' fuck off me, ye heid case!” Rush shoved him and Everett let go.

It was never a good sign when Rush let his usual Scottish accent slur and quicken like that. Greer had told him once that Rush said that he'd grown up poor in Glasgow. He figured when Rush sounded like that he was using his childhood speech. And it meant that Rush was starting to lose it.

Rush moved away and glared at him. Yeah, Everett knew that look. It had never intimidated him but it used to reduce Volker to an insecure heap of scientist, but – but actually, from what he'd overheard – Volker was holding his own now against Rush. He'd said some pretty cutting things to Rush, and Rush hadn't lit Volker on fire with his searing wit. Instead Rush had just stayed quiet and let Volker rip him a new one. Huh. Everett hadn't really considered what this new behavior was saying about Rush.

Rush ran his hand through his hair, and Everett just held his hands out, like he had when he'd been in the body of a Nakai and trying to get through to Rush that he wasn't going to hurt him. That he was trying to help him.

“Hey... He drew out the word, making it sound as soothing as he could.

Rush crossed his arms over his chest and looked away.

Everett slowly approached him. When he was close enough to touch Rush, he stopped. “Look,” he said quietly, “we've got to do this. I get that this makes you uncomfortable. What would make it easier?”

Rush glanced at him, but dropped his eyes and stepped back. “Nothing.” He sighed. “We'll step inside the pod and Eli will seal us in. It'll be over within seconds. There's no need to engage in a farce about hugging beforehand.”

“Why'd you get so rattled, Rush?”

Rush shot him a disdainful look. 

He didn't enlighten Everett on what had freaked him out. Everett wanted to question him, to try to learn _something_ about this man, but if you pushed Nicholas Rush too hard then he'd explode in your face like C-4. And Rush in a fit was something he'd like to avoid at the moment. So he made a conciliatory gesture with his hands and watched Rush's shoulders slump a little, and yes, that was relief that had raced across the man's face for a brief moment.

“C'mon, Ace. Let's get this done.”

Rush nodded, and they moved back to the console, Everett being careful to not overcrowd his chief scientist. 

Lotta, lotta work, was Dr. Nicholas Rush. 

* * *

Eli joined them at the console and Rush moved aside, pointing to a passage in Ancient. Eli skimmed it and then looked over at Rush, eyes rounded. “Seriously? You guys are going to--”

Rush grimaced. “No. Not to that extent. I'm going to check the pod. Then we'll give this a try.”

Rush moved at his usual brisk pace down the corridor and began working. Everett watched him fiddle with the controls, running a diagnostic, probably. And he had been very careful to not catch Everett's eye before he'd left. He was keeping something from Everett. Again. 

Stretching, he filled Eli in on how his mother had been handling things this last week. She and Sharon, Camile's partner, had held a support group for the families of the crew who had been read into the program. 

Eli had smiled gratefully at him. “Thanks, Colonel.” 

“Eli. What did that passage say?”

“Oh, just... gave some directions on uh, the positions the two people sharing the pod should take.” Eli wasn't meeting his eyes, either.

He rubbed the heel of his hand over the arch of his eyebrow and sighed. “Just read it to me. Don't abbreviate or change it around. Read it to me straight.”

Eli made a face. “Yeah. You're probably gonna love this as much as Rush does. But, um, I think he's in denial about it, just so you know. And can I just point out – once _again_ \-- that everybody on this ship should learn Ancient, not just the scientists. Well, Matt's learning, and Chloe, but really, she's part of the science team now, but hell, even Becker should be taught. Who knows what kind of recipes the database might hold--”

Everett interrupted him. “Eli, stop stalling. Just read the damn thing.” 

“O-kay. Uh, don't kill the messenger.” He cleared his throat and looked down at the script that filled the screen, all sharp angles and dark lines. “It starts with a warning. 'Only those who uh, deser- um, desire to be as one with a – not sure exactly how this translates, close friend, lover, bonded or kindred soul – should join hands within the chamber of etera dormata, um, sleep, eternal sleep, for upon awakening their thoughts shall be open to each other and thus verimas, uh, truth, the truth shall be evident. They will – need, or maybe require?-- habe clementiam, to have mercy upon each other and cool the pain of fire and so be sure, traveler, of your decision. Once the stream joins the river it cannot flow alone.'”

“You're saying that Rush and I are going to end up connected in some way.” Everett massaged his forehead with one hand. He could feel a headache waiting to ambush him. Jesus Christ.

Eli nodded. “Yeah, maybe. But, remember, it's really, really possible that's only true for Ancients. You and Rush, well.”

“Rush is a natural carrier of the ATA gene. A very, very strong carrier. It's one reason he was recruited into the program. It's helped him become an Ancient tech expert. And I was given the retro virus. It took.”

“You're kidding me, right?” Eli's eyebrows shot upwards. “Rush never said he was a carrier.”

Everett snorted. “You're surprised that Rush kept something private? It wasn't relevant to our situation here. He told us right away that Destiny's tech was pre-ATA gene compatible. Although I've wondered if his affinity with the ship was enhanced in some way because of his DNA.”

“So when Destiny messed with your head?”

“I don't know. It's possible the retro virus made it easier for the ship to do those simulations.”

“So... you and Rush might be able to mind-meld. Scary, huh?”

“You bet. But we don't have a choice here.”

“Awkward,” Eli muttered, drawing the word out. 

“Rush knows this, doesn't he?” It would certainly explain why Rush had uttered “fuck,” with such feeling earlier, his eyes skimming the script, and then ignored him when he'd asked what was wrong. _Nothing. Don't worry about it, Colonel._

“His Ancient is really good.” Eli shot a quick glance at Rush. “There's _no_ way he would have missed the whole 'My mind to your mind' thing.

Everett put a hand on Eli's shoulder. “Read the rest. Let's get this done before Rush works himself into a state worrying about it.”

“Um, there's pictures?”

“Pictures?”

“Recommended positions. Ah, here.” He scrolled down to a new page. “Just touch this button to go to the next screen. I think I'll let you look them over and I'll just go...” He pointed towards Rush, who was on his knees in front of the pod control panel and scribbling something in a ragged little notebook.

Eli's face was turning red. Oh, great. 

“Go. Help Rush with the final checks. I'll be there in a minute.”

Eli left, but not before throwing him a sympathetic look.

Everett touched the button. His eyes widened when he saw the next screen.

He and Rush were screwed.

 

* * *

“Eli, Rush, we good to go?” Everett said calmly when he walked over to the pair of them, both crouched on the floor looking into the open panel. He'd settled down after he'd first looked at the console screen. So, okay, it looked like touching was going to be needed. How much, now that wasn't as clear.

He'd stared at the illustrations and thought about what might happen to him and Rush. Maybe some kind of telepathic connection. Maybe nothing at all. Eli was right. They weren't Ancients. Anyway, it didn't matter. In order to live they had to share the pod. They'd sort out the rest later. 

“Um, yeah.” Eli said. 

Everett offered his hand; Eli grasped it and levered himself up from the deck. Rush fastened the grill back over the panel, and, ignoring Everett's extended hand, stood up with his customary energetic gracefulness. 

“Eli will be monitoring from the console.” Rush tucked his hair behind his ear, and massaged the back of his neck. He glanced at Everett. “The controls are locked so that the pod won't engage until the benchmark is reached. We'll, ah, we might hae t' experiment a bit to reach the correct level.”

Everett held back a snort with effort. Experiment. Well, let Rush call it whatever he wanted, if it would let him accept that the two of them were about to get up close and very personal with each other. If Rush wasn't going to mention that they very well might end up tied to each other in some way, then he wasn't going to say a word either. He was fine with avoiding that conversation for now. 

“Let's get to it, then. Eli.” Everett turned and held out his hand. Eli shook it, then shrugged and hugged him. Everett patted him on the back and they stepped apart.

“Hugs are good,” Eli said. “More people should hug each other. Hugs are manly. Very very manly. Like when your team is winning, and you know, all of us are on the same team. Destiny's team. So it's really legit cool for say, two team members to hug each... oth... er.” Rush was glaring at Eli. 

“Yes well, thank you, Mr. Wallace, for your observations.”

“I'll just.” Eli indicated the console with his thumb. 

“Yes, yes. Kindly wake us up first afterwards, will you?” Rush had stopped glaring at Eli. He wasn't looking at him at all, pretending instead to focus on the control panel. And he was pretending. Everett didn't have much of a handle on Rush, but after all the time he'd spent observing the man in person or in the kino footage, he could tell this much: the man was pretending; he was feeling uncomfortable and possibly embarrassed. 

Eli shot Everett a look, and then, a look of determination on his face, he pounced on Rush and wrapped him in his arms, Rush's face against Eli's neck. Like that, it was clear how much taller and broader Eli was than Rush. 

Rush startled and then tried to push Eli away. “Eli, wha' are--”

“Shut up. Nobody touches you. You think I haven't noticed that? And you're human, Rush. You're like those failure to thrive babies. You need human contact, so just shut up. We're doing this.”

“I don't nee--”

“Yes you do. Man, for somebody's who's a freakin' genius, you can be really dumb.”

Rush sighed but after that first initial reaction he hadn't struggled against Eli's hold. Slowly Rush moved his arms around Eli until he was returning the hug.

“Alright, lad. Now let go o' me. Colonel Young is waiting.” 

Eli tightened his hold for a few seconds and then he stepped back, freeing Rush. Rush ran his hand through his hair, tousling the shaggy mop even further into disarray. He punched Eli's arm lightly, a rueful look on his face. “Cheers, man. Go on now.”

He turned away from Eli and stood on the far side of the pod, waiting. And not looking at either of them.

Eli gave Everett a look dripping with significance and nodded towards Rush. “Good luck,” he mouthed at him. Then he pointed to a radio sitting inside the pod. “It's on one-way. I'll let you guys know if what you're doing is improving the readings.”

“Thank you, Eli. We'll see you on the other side. Oh, and what Rush asked about? I agree. Pop us out right after Destiny wakes you up when we reach the next galaxy.”

“Sure thing, Colonel.” Eli smiled at him, then walked down to the console. A moment later his voice came over the radio. “Colonel, Rush. I'm in position. I'll monitor vitals signs and the... other stuff.”

Rush rolled his eyes. Everett moved next to him. Rush looked at him and he seemed to have regained his equanimity.

“Well, Colonel. Best we start. We'll do a baseline of just standing one in front o' the other and see if that's sufficient.”

“And if it's not?”

“We'll move closer.”

“And if that doesn't do the trick? You had a bad reaction when I put my arm around you. You think you can keep it together now?”

Rush didn't answer him. He just looked at Everett, emotions warring with each other until stoicism won out.

Everett gentled his voice. “Look, I know this is hard. Usually when I lay my hands on you it's to beat you down. You've probably got some instinctive reaction to not get so close to me.”

“Usually? I remember a friendly slap on the shoulder during our early days on Destiny, but that was just the once.”

“Don't you remember waking up in my bed after you killed Simeon? How do you think you ended up there?”

Rush started massaging his shoulder again. “I was a rude bugger an' commandeered it? I was pure dead tired when I came back from that planet. You insisted on dragging me with you to your room, to interrogate me about what happened and... And somebody came to the door and got you. I was waiting on you to return and then I don't remember anything after that till the next day. You weren't there.” He shrugged. “I left you a note sayin' I was sorry to have crashed on your bed.”

“Well, you didn't make it there on your own steam. I found you asleep on the floor near the door.”

“Why didn't you just wake me up and send me off?”

“You were too deeply asleep. Exhausted again, like when you had that meltdown and passed out and slept, what was it TJ told me? Ten hours? And she said you probably needed another eight but we needed you, so I told her to wake you up.”

“The first time we flew through a star.”

“Yep. So there you were on my floor, dirty and passed out. I picked you up and carried you to the bed, I unlaced your boots, pulled off your clothes, and covered you up. I washed your shirts, beat the dust out of your jeans.” Everett decided not to tell him that he'd also wet a cloth and wiped the blood and dirt and sweat from Rush's face and body. And the faint trace of tear tracks. 

“Why?” Rush seemed honestly baffled.

“You needed somebody to take care of you and I didn't feel like sticking TJ with it.”

“I see.” Rush pushed a hand through his hair again. He must do it a hundred times a day, Everett thought idly.

Everett put a hand on Rush's shoulder, testing him. “And you took out the bastard who killed our people. Everybody appreciated that.” Rush had stiffened but he hadn't thrown off Everett's arm. So, progress.

“Appreciated?” Rush snorted, shaking off Everett's offer of thanks. No surprise there. The man could not take a compliment or any expression of gratitude. “I killed that man against your direct orders. I thought you were going to throw me into a makeshift cell and lose the key.”

“There was no way you could have managed to get Simeon back to the stargate on your own. He'd have jumped you.” Everett let his arm drop back down to his side.

“He was wounded. Greer shot him, but he was able to walk. Did no one tell you that?”

“Rush, you've got more guts than you've got muscles. He'd have gotten the upper hand and killed you. You're not trained to fight, especially against a Lucian Alliance elite soldier.”

“That wasn't why I shot him,” Rush said acidly, in a soft tone.

Everett shrugged. “It's still true. And that's what I put in my report, that you had no choice but to kill him or leave him a dangerous enemy at our back.”

“Shaded the truth, did you?” Rush asked mildly.

Everett narrowed his eyes. “I've been taking notes from an expert over the last damn year.”

“Yes well, you might find that comes back on you.”

“Like nobody believing anything you say anymore, sure that there's some hidden motive for your own gain in everything you do or say?”

Rush looked at him, his eyes dark and unreadable. He said, almost in a croon, “Something like that.”

“Eli told me about the little chat you two had before you and I went into stasis. That you told him you offered to stay out and fix the pod, but you knew I wouldn't believe that Nicholas Rush would sacrifice himself for the crew, and so I would do it instead. Neither of us counted on Eli.”

“You couldn't take the chance that I would refuse to kill myself for the rest of you lot.”

“Well?”

“I was sincere. But I'm a good enough chess player to know what your reaction would be, that you wouldn't trust me. I knew you'd turn me down and sentence yourself to death, because you don't know a bloody thing about how to fix the pods or anything else on this ship. And that would have been entirely on you, because I offered.” Rush had spoken rapidly, voice rising slightly, his hands slashing through the air, his posture stiff and straight with outrage. “I offered!”

Everett's irritation grew and exploded his good intentions to keep Rush calm. He raised his own voice. “And we know now that the last pod couldn't be fixed. So what would you have done, Rush, if you hadn't found out about the double occupancy last chance that Eli came across in the database? What would you have done with the time ticking away? Shot yourself? What about hanging? Go down to the infirmary and take TJ's sleep meds with a chaser of Brody's booze? Just what was your plan to kill yourself?”

Rush stared at him and then his shoulders straightened, his chin went up. “Why bother telling. You don't believe that I'd have done it.”

“So you might as well lie, is that it? Or keep things a secret. Another damn lie of omission.”

“Wow. You've just got me all figured out, don't you?”

“No. You're as much a damn mystery as those structures you found in the cosmic background radiation. Which, you know, a lot of people on Earth think you're lying about that.”

“I'm aware.”

With an effort Everett calmed down. He spoke gently this time. “What were you going to do if the clock ran out on you?”

Rush didn't say anything. He just looked at Everett with that same damn expression that had convinced him that Rush had known Destiny would be fine flying through a star. The expression that had persuaded him that the other man had flat-out lied to the rest of them, leaving them to think they were all going to die.

He clenched his hands. Every time he saw that look on Rush's deceitful face he wanted to wipe it off.

Rush looked at Everett's fists. He raised his eyebrows. “Going to knock me around again, are you? Go ahead, get it out of your system, and then let's get this bloody well done. We shouldn't keep Eli waiting.”

“Don't tempt me like that. It won't do either of us any good to have another fight.”

“Well, it won't do me any good. You'll win again. But the release of adrenaline from fighting, well, afterwards people calm down and they become more reasonable, in my experience.”

“In your experience. Just how many times have you gotten yourself beaten up because of that smart mouth of yours or for pulling some stunt?”

Rush sighed and started massaging the back of his neck, his long hair hiding his hand. He didn't say anything, but that same expression crossed his face again. God damn it.

“You're a lotta work, Rush.” He had to calm down. Rush was the volatile one and Everett couldn't keep the man on an even keel if he himself was ready to blow up.

Rush kept his mouth shut.

“All right,” Everett said quietly, “you don't have to answer that question.”

Rush shot him an incredulous look. Everett could just imagine his thoughts. _As if you can just give me orders and I'll do as you ask. Not bloody likely._

Rush said, tightly, “We need to work the problem, Colonel. You can harangue me later.”

“You've got a raincheck on that. And also? You're going to learn some hand-to-hand. You're more of a street fighter. You use whatever's around you for a weapon, I've noticed. Bouncing a rock off my head, for instance. But you're little and that's a disadvantage if you don't know some pretty good hand-to-hand.”

“I'm not little,” Rush said, affronted.

“Now you're just in denial.”

Rush pushed his messy hair off his forehead and gave him another one of those baffled looks. Everett fucking loved putting that expression on Rush's face.

Everett swallowed down a grin. “So, working the problem: if I have to touch you, can you just relax about it?”

Rush shrugged, and said, “I'll manage.” He waved towards the pod. “After you.” 

 

* * *

_I'll manage._

Right. Rush had managed until he'd had a damn flashback. The closed-in space, the glass door, had triggered him into a waking nightmare of being back in a tank on the Nakai ship. 

Eli had warned them that Rush's pulse was starting to zoom up, but by then Rush was pounding on the glass door, flattening his hands against it.

“What the hell? Calm down. Just open the damn door.”

“No! NO! The water!”

That was when he had figured out Rush thought he was back on the alien ship. He was oblivious that the means to escape was right next to him. Everett reached around him and pushed the release. The door slid up and Rush fell out, tumbled down the stairs and twisted on the floor looking up, panicked, as Everett stepped out.

“Get t' fuck away from me!”

In a weird deja-vue moment that duplicated the events on the alien ship, Everett held out his hands, fingers splayed open. “I'm not going to hurt you. I'm Colonel Young, remember? Rush, you're okay. You're on Destiny.”

A look of confusion passed over Rush's face. “Chloe!” He jumped up to his feet, still watching Everett. Then he turned and ran down the corridor. Fast. Rush lived up to his name. Still, the way he was headed was a dead-end. Everett moved out to the middle of the corridor, hoping he could catch Rush if he was still lost in his head when he came back towards him. He really wasn't looking forward to chasing the man all over the ship.

But Rush slowed down when he'd reached the last of the pods. Turning around, he started a slow jog, glancing into each pod as he passed them by. Everett walked slowly towards him, not wanting to spook him. 

They met at Chloe's pod, Rush with both hands on the glass door, looking at her. “She's okay, Rush. Do you know where you're at, who I am?”

Rush nodded, sweat trickling down his face. “Okay, Ace, I'm gonna need to hear a verbal confirmation here. Do you know where you're at and who I am?”

The other man said dully, “Destiny. In one of the corridors that house the stasis pods. You're Colonel Young. Chloe is here, she's all right. We got away from the aliens and came back to the ship.”

“And when was that, just, uh, for the record.”

Rush looked confused and then yanked up his shirts, felt his chest. “You made them take out the transmitter.”

“That's right. So, just for the hell of it, tell me about the last thing you remember.”

Rush brought up his fists and pressed them against his temples. He was still breathing fast. “That, shite, that was'na real. I thought I was back in the tank. And then the tank broke and the alien was looking at me. You were looking at me and I heard you in my head. But it was'na real.”

Everett remembered how terrified Rush had looked when Everett had freed him and he'd landed on the alien ship deck in a gush of water. Despite having left the man for dead he couldn't help but feel empathy for him for what he'd endured with the blue aliens. 

He was feeling that empathy again right now. Poor bastard. He spoke soothingly,“That's right, sport. It wasn't real. You just had a doozy of a flashback. Now, can you tell me the last thing you remember before you flashed back to the alien ship?”

Rush lowered his hands and his eyes were still wide and dazed. “I... and you. In the pod, and we didn't reach the right readings and you were behind me and then you moved closer and we waited and Eli said it wasn't enough. I was staring at the door, and then I guess it happened. The flashback. Damn it. Thought I was done with those.”

“Did I trigger it?”

Rush shook his head. “I don't think so. I think it was the closed-in space and the glass door. Maybe the door more than the space.”

“It's all right. Okay. When we try this again, you face me, not the door.”

“Yes, alright.” 

Everett looked at him and the way his fists were opening and closing. “Look. I'll get us through this. Just trust me. I'm not going to hurt you.” He slowly moved closer to Rush. “I'm going to put my arms around you now. Just take deep breaths and let them out. You're all right.”

He slowly drew the other man into a loose hug, and when Rush didn't freak on him, he oh, so, slowly drew him in closer, until there was maybe two inches of space between them. He could still feel Rush trembling, and his breathing was still faster than Everett liked. 

Everett started talking about how much he'd like to have new socks, how he kept patching up his old ones but every time he turned around he'd poked another hole in them. He shifted one arm so it was securely around Rush's lower back and with his other hand he started carefully sweeping up and down Rush's back, gradually increasing the pressure until he was firmly rubbing the other man's back.

Rush's breathing had slowed down. Everett moved him a little closer, so that their chests were touching. Rush gave a long sigh and Everett could feel the remaining tension in his body dissipating away. He moved his hand up to Rush's neck and started massaging the tight muscles there. Rush let his forehead rest against Young's shoulder, his arms a loose circle around Everett's waist.

Everett left the topic of socks and moved onto the subject of shipboard clubs. It was Wray's idea, but he thought it was a good one. There was already an informal group who liked to play cards together, and some folks had started a choir. There was interest in a bible study group, and of course, Chloe's yoga classes. 

Rush said quietly, “Chloe's time shouldn't be squandered on teaching people how to stretch and bend. We need her to run calculations.”

“Well, Ace, I think she could do both. She likes Yoga and she's a good teacher. And it's probably a break for her to do something physical. ” He worked on a difficult knot between Rush's neck and shoulder. 

“Why do you call me that?”

“What, Ace?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, because I think of you as our ace-in-the-hole.”

“Even though you don't trust me,” Rush said evenly.

“I meant what I said at our farewell dinner. You've come through for us, Rush, despite all the crap you've done. You might not be able to calculate as fast as Eli, but don't think I haven't noticed it's you who comes up with ideas that saves our asses.”

Rush shook off the compliment. “I don't. Eli and the science team are better.”

“I'm gonna let that last part you said go for now. About not trusting you – that's because you haven't been entirely honest with us. Or in some cases, honest at all. That's got to stop, Rush. I don't know why you have these impulses to keep information to yourself or to just plain lie. You've got to get over that habit.”

Rush whispered, “I'm aware.”

“You know, at times we work really well together. When you're not fighting me.”

“I'm not after your job,” Rush said tiredly. “You can have it.”

“What do you want then?”

“To be able to do my own job. Don't hold me back. It makes me wild.”

“I don't want you to do something rash and irresponsible. You know, you're like a kid who's been given the key to a candy store. There's things you might get into that could be bad for you. For the rest of us, too.”

“I'm no a child. And I don't do things on a whim.”

“I have to disagree with you on that one. You're impulsive.”

“Maybe it seems that way. But I assure you, Colonel, that I weigh every action very carefully, the risks and the benefits. I'm just fast. I can see how things are going to unfold before other people even see the problem.”

“And I suppose you think it slows you down too much to explain what you're doing to the rest of us.”

“To be blunt about it, yes.”

“Okay. Good talk. Do you think we can tackle the pod now?”

“Yes. And, well, thank you.” Rush raised his head and looked at Everett.

Rush had nice eyes, when he wasn't glaring at somebody. They were really dark. Almond shaped and kind of mesmerizing. 

Eli and some of the others liked to designate crew members as various characters in the video games they used to play. Everett had heard them having fun about it a few times, especially after knocking back some of Brody's paint thinner. They all agreed that Rush could be a wizard, with his brown longish hair, pointed chin, sharp angled cheekbones and thin build. 

The others idly would discuss the way Rush walked with a swagger, brisk and confident. The intense way he would competently tackle a problem, even when he didn't come up with the answer himself, but paved the way for one of the science team to come up with the solution. The way he'd written his equations on the damn walls of the ship like he was casting a spell. Somebody who was sort of, part of, the fairy world. Someone who was hard to understand and harder to find if he didn't want to be seen. He didn't know if Rush knew about their little game. Everett could see why they thought of him that way, though. 

“You're welcome,” he replied to Rush, a little surprised that Rush had thanked him. He loosened his hold on Rush and they moved a little apart.

He slung an arm around Rush's shoulder and tugged him forward without any resistance from the other man. Ah, if only all their interactions could be this easy, in step with each other to accomplish a goal.

 

* * * 

 

“Everything okay now?” Eli's voice greeted them when they stepped back into the pod, Everett first, facing the door and then Rush stepped inside facing Everett. 

Everett picked up the radio and answered him “Yeah, Eli. We're going to give this another shot. Thanks for giving us some space.”

“Sure. I mean, I could tell you two needed some alone time.”

Everett put the radio down while Rush rolled his eyes. They looked at each other, and Rush almost smiled, the corner of his mouth turning up just a little. Everett opened his arms, pleased that Rush moved closer without hesitation. He wrapped his arms around Rush and Rush tightened his own arms around Everett's waist. 

They stayed that way for several minutes. Everett noticed that Rush had closed his eyes. 

“You okay?”

“I'm fine.”

“Hey, Colonel Young? Rush? That was better but still nowhere close.” Eli sounded apologetic.

Rush opened his eyes. “Well. I think we both know what we have to do now.” 

Everett reached over and hit the pod's release button. “Let's try it with shirts and boots off.”

Rush turned and stepped out of the pod, Everett following him. Everett knelt down and began unlacing a boot, and Rush sat down on the steps. He made quick work of his own boots and slid off his socks, tucked them into his boots and set them down near the pod. Then he unfastened his vest and folded it, placing it on top of the boots. 

Everett watched him, struck by how matter of fact he was acting. Rush noticed he was watching.

“What?”

“You seem to be okay with this now.”

“Yes well. Not like we have a choice, is it.” Rush unbuckled his belt and slid it free. His jeans were loose around his hips without the belt to cinch them tight. He pulled off his brown T-shirt and folded it. 

“You're very pragmatic.” Everett unfastened his jacket and pulled it off, neatly folding it as well. 

“So I hear. I believe you yourself have called me a pragmatic bastard on at least one occasion.” 

“Were you eavesdropping?”

Rush smirked at him. 

“Rush.” His voice came out a little lower, an edge of a growl to it that he hadn't intended. 

“Don't worry about it, Colonel. It wasn't like you were holding a secret meeting. As I remember, you were in the mess eating dinner with some o' the others.” He pulled off the long-sleeved Henley that a year ago had still been white.

Everett removed his black long-sleeved T-shirt and tidied up his pile of clothes. He glanced over at Rush, to see if he was finished undressing. Rush was bent over, rolling up his jeans. 

“You look like a beach bum like that.”

“Aye. I suppose my hair and beard just adds to the look.”

“Yep.” He frowned, looking at Rush's back. Several quick strides had him next to the man, and he pulled him up, startling Rush. 

“Colonel?”

Everett took him by the biceps and looked hard at his chest, then spun him around and examined his back. Rush didn't fight him.

“Who beat you up?”

“Well, I wouldn't know.”

“I want names. And I want you to tell me what happened.” He tightened his grip on Rush, resisting the urge to shake an answer out of him.

“Want all you like. Why do you care anyway? It's not like you haven't done worse. You were even thinking about teaching me another lesson about an hour ago.”

“So are you saying you deserved this? What did you do to piss off whoever did this?”

Rush shrugged. “This is irrelevant and distracting. We need to get back in the pod and see if being bare skin to bare skin will make the difference.” He shook loose from Everett's hold and ran his hands up and down his arms. “It's bloody cold in here.”

“Rush,” he gritted out in frustration, “you're going to tell me about this.”

“Oh, am I?”

“You're a member of this crew. If you're being hurt I want it to stop.”

Rush gave him a thoughtful look. “I might believe you about that. Or at least that you didn't authorize it or condone it. This time.”

“This time. This has happened before, hasn't it?”

Rush shrugged and wrapped his arms around his bare chest.

“You can't stop it. So don't worry about it. They make it clear each time that this is just punishment. They know the ship needs me; they won't kill me.” 

“And you thought I've been giving whoever this person is a green light to do this? Thanks a lot.”

“Well. Your disapproval of me has never been any sort of secret.” Rush shifted, cocking one hip forward in a familiar pose, arms crossing across his chest. “I thought you might have acted the part of Henry the II and wished that someone would give me what I deserve.”

“Henry the... Are you talking about Thomas Becket?” Rush was broadcasting defiance with that stance and Everett wanted to jerk him right out of it.

“Forget about it, Colonel. I'm ready to do this. Would you please step inside the pod?”

“Not until you tell me what the hell has been going on.” Everett said firmly, giving Rush his best no-nonsense look.

They waited in silence, a showdown between them, Everett prepared to stare him down until Rush gave in. A minute passed. Then three or four. Six minutes. Eight.

Rush threw up his hands. “Fine. If it will get you to move your arse into the pod, I'll tell you.”

“I'd appreciate it.” 

“Yes, yes.” He looked past Everett, avoiding his eyes. “So sometimes, after something has happened that's been deemed my fault, I get jumped by three or four men – I am fairly sure they're men – who have their faces covered up.”

He paused, but didn't make eye contact. “Is that sufficient for you?”

“No. Go on.”

“Ah, well then. The wankers hold me down and bind my hands and feet, and stuff a rag in my mouth. They throw a blanket over me and sometimes they carry me somewhere else and sometimes they don't. They kick me and hit me and tell me I'm a piece of shit that they're not going to kill because I'm needed. They let me know what I've done wrong in their eyes. And that I might as well save my breath about complaining because it won't change anything.”

“And you just went along with this?”

Rush did look at him finally. “I never have any proof except a bunch of bruises. Besides, I'm not deaf, you know. Most of the crew would thank them for teaching me a lesson.”

“And you thought I was behind it.”

“I did. Or at least that you were turning a blind eye to it. I've revised my hypothesis though. I think you wouldn't subcontract the work out but do it yourself if you were angry wi' me again.”

“I'm not going to hit you, no matter how aggravating you get.”

“Ah.” He shaded his voice into something dark, almost seductive. “Don't make promises you can't keep, Colonel.”

“If I make a promise I do keep it. I won't hit you, but that doesn't mean I won't make your life miserable in other ways.”

Rush made a sound edged with derision. “ _That_ I already knew. You're one to reward and punish as you please, aren't you then. Awarding me double rations or keeping me chained to your side when as the Ancient tech expert I should have gone to that first seed ship to assess its potential usage.”

“You're still pissed that I tried to do something nice for you, to show my appreciation? Although I was wrong about that since you'd lied to us about flying through the star. And you're right about the seed ship. I was punishing you since I knew damn well you were keeping something from me. I was surprised that you didn't throw a fit about that, just pouted a bit.”

“Pouted! I did no such thing.”

“Yeah, you did. Stuck your lower lip out like you were five, although you hid it away again fast enough. And you practically scorched Eli with the looks you were giving him since he was excited about the data being sent over from the seed ship.”

“Yes, well. None of that is relevant now. Can we please proceed?”

Everett ignored the question. He moved closer to the other man and pressed down on one of the large dark purple bruises, one that was edged with green, right above Rush's beltline and near his belly button.

Rush flinched. “Shite. Stop that.” He stepped a little away from Everett.

“These are around a month old, I would guess. And if you're still sensitive now, then they hit you really hard. What were you being punished for?”

Rush kept silent.

“Rush,” Everett growled.

Rush made an annoyed sound. “If you must know, it was Park going blind.”

“That wasn't your fault.”

“They disagreed. They thought I could have come up with some way to override the door and let her out of hydroponics before the star blinded her. They thought I just didn't care enough to try.”

“What else have you been punished for?”

“I don't see the point of telling you. You say I'm pragmatic and I agree. So drop this inquisition and let’s focus on the problem at hand.”

“Rush, you're going to tell me everything about this.”

“You're a damn stubborn man. If I don't care about it, why the hell should you?”

“This could escalate, and you could be seriously hurt. I already knew you lacked common sense, and now I learn you've let yourself be a punching bag and think it's no big deal? There's going to be some changes when we get to the new galaxy. I'm putting myself in charge of keeping you in one piece. And that means that you _are_ going to tell me every detail about these beatings. There's going to be an investigation.”

“You are not putting yourself in charge of me! I'm no for having that!” Rush gave him that affronted look again.

“Wrong. And since you're being so damned uncooperative, I'm going to be checking on you every other day for any new bruises. And if you won't raise up your shirt on your own, I'll have the two biggest airmen on the ship help you.”

Rush stared at him, speechless. Then he scrubbed his hands over his face, ending with looking at Everett between his splayed out fingers. Another way he had of hiding away, Everett supposed.

“Look, Rush. You're not seeing the big picture here. If you're being harassed like this, how many other people are being intimidated? I can't let a gang of thugs take condemning their shipmates into their own hands. What if it was Eli that they blamed for some perceived mistake? What about if they think Chloe is still a danger to the ship?” 

Rush sat down sideways on the bottom step leading into the pod and pulled his knees up close to his chest. He wrapped his arms around his legs and Everett was reminded of how he'd tucked himself up like that on the seed ship, after crawling away from Everett after he had almost murdered Rush. 

“Fuck,” he said, sounding exhausted. “You bloody well will have your way, won't you?”

“It's for the greater good, you ought to appreciate that. So tell me, what were you punished for?”

Rush sighed. “For dialing the ninth chevron. For lying about the Icarus planet in the database. For keeping the bridge secret. The first star we flew through. For not telling about the transmitter in my chest. For Franklin sitting in the chair. Park's blindness. Riley. I think that was all. Now for the love of god will you drop it and work this problem?” He indicated the stasis pod behind him with a nod of his head.

“I'll table it till later. You're not done. If you don't remember many details, Camile can hypnotize you.”

“Yes well, hypnosis never worked on me when I was trying to quit smoking. So I doubt very much she would have any success.” He looked at Everett and shivered. “Can we try this now? Or do you want to discuss every last thing you don't approve of about me first?”

He was trying for sarcasm, Everett knew, but his words just sounded tired. The man looked miserable. He wondered how much sleep Rush had gotten before going into stasis. He knew how worn out he felt still, so apparently being in stasis didn't substitute for actual sleep. It was freezing in Destiny's halls. Heat as well as light had been mostly turned off. 

He had a high cold tolerance and he was starting to feel pretty chilled. Rush was shivering again, and his shudders didn't stop; he was being affected by the lack of heat more then Everett. Not surprising, though. There wasn't much to the man. Had he always been this thin? 

“Okay, we're done here. Just expect to have a long talk when we wake up.”

“Yes, yes. You've made yourself quite clear.” Rush got up and waited by the side of the pod while Everett rolled his own trouser legs up. 

“Everything about this ship, everything that pertains to the safety and the welfare of this crew is my concern, Rush. _You_ are my concern,” Everett said firmly. “ _You_ are going to learn to work with me and the rest of the crew if it kills me. You don't have to like that. You do have to accept it.”

Rush's expression morphed into the one that Everett disliked so, so much. That closed off, secretive look, his eyes promising deception as he remained mute. Everett took a deep breath. He was not going to become angry. 

He wasn't.

* * *

Rush kept his mouth shut inside the pod. He just nodded when Everett suggested that Rush place his bare feet partly over Everett's feet, close enough so that their lower legs were touching. That position unbalanced Rush somewhat, so Everett tightened his arms around him, holding him snugly against him. Rush closed his eyes again and let Everett take his weight. He was holding his body stiffly, though. His skin was cold and he was still shivering. 

“Guys, that's a lot closer. Can you uh, do something... more?” Eli sounded embarrassed. 

“Try to relax against me,” Everett suggested. “I'll hold you up. And maybe put one hand up higher on my back and the other lower. Maybe this works on how many points of contact there are between the partners.”

Rush shifted from locking his arms around Everett to the new positions, his hands freezing cold against Everett's back. He slipped out a small relieved sound as his hands began to warm. He still was holding himself stiffly against Everett's chest, though.

They waited for Eli's report in silence.

“A little better. Um... maybe you should take it to the next level.”

“Look, Rush, try not to be so stiff. Okay, I'm going to shift an arm down to hold your weight and I'm going to rub your back with my other hand. So don't freak. And lay your head against me.” 

Rush put his head down, and Everett lifted his shoulder a little, nudging Rush so his face was buried in Everett's neck. His breath and beard tickled a little. 

Rush sighed, but Everett could tell he was trying. Rubbing his back seemed to help him become more pliant. 

“Still not there,” Eli interrupted the silence between them. “Look, do what you're doing for maybe ten minutes, and if these readings don't increase to the magic numbers, then Colonel, you at least know what you have to do. And I promise, my lips are sealed.”

Ten minutes. Okay, they could do ten minutes. Rush's skin was soft, smooth. He found that he was lingering over some of the bruises on Rush's back, skimming the edges of them, laying his palm over them as if he could form a protective barrier between them and who? His unknown assailants? Destiny? Destiny had left her own marks on Rush, breaking through his skin at his temples, leaving him in a coma after using the neural interface chair. He flashed on the other Rush's injuries from the ship's consoles blowing up, leaving him with cuts and burns on his face and hands.

After a while Everett asked, “Are you feeling warmer?”

Rush nodded against him.

“Is this the silent treatment? My ex-wife used to pull that on me.”

“No,” Rush said softly. “But what is there to say? I don't want to start up anything else between us, so being quiet seemed a better option.” 

“Oh, I think we've got something to discuss. Ever play spin-the-bottle or seven minutes in heaven when you were a kid?”

“No.”

“How about drunken make-out sessions with random strangers in bars?”

“No.”

“So you only kiss people you like?”

“I gather that's about t' change.”

Everett laughed. “What about guys? Ever kiss a guy before.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I have too.”

“Colonel, I've given you a Glasgow Kiss already.”

“When was that?”

“When I head butted you during our fights.”

“You really are something else, you know that, right?” Everett said, amused for the moment.

Rush shrugged. “Actually, I hear that I'm a lot of work.”

 

* * *

“It's been ten minutes.” Eli said, carefully nonchalant. “I'll just, uh, keep on monitoring, okay?”

There was silence between the two of them after Eli had spoken. Everett kept moving his hand on Rush's back in comforting circles. Well. No point in stalling any longer.

“Okay, Ace,” Everett said briskly. “Let's just go for it.”

“Fine,” Rush replied, and kissed Everett's neck, startling him. 

Somehow he wasn't expecting Rush to take the lead on this. 

One of Rush's hands had crept up and his fingers were gliding through Everett's curls, touching his head, massaging it, while he continued to kiss Everett's neck. 

This wasn't bad. As long as he just concentrated on the sensations of fingers and lips and the drag of stubble on his skin and not on who was giving it to him, it wasn't bad at all. Pleasant, even. 

But then Rush ruined Everett's mindless enjoyment. He stretched up a little and moved both of his hands to Everett's face, the other man's clever and quick hands caressing him even as Everett was forced to take even more of Rush's weight to keep him balanced against Everett.

“Colonel Young,” he breathed out, and then he was kissing Everett on the mouth, and god damn it, Rush was focusing on him like he was some new fascinating Ancient tech that Rush had just discovered.

Rush slid one hand around to the back of Everett's neck, and he played with Everett's mouth, alternating small kisses at the edge of Everett's mouth to pressing their lips together, his mouth soft and welcoming and still tasting of the tea he must have drunk before going into stasis the first time.

Everett broke their kiss, pulling back a little so he could look into Rush's dark wizard eyes. This felt like passion. This felt like honesty. And trust. If he loosened his hold on Rush even by a little, the other man would fall back, unbalanced.

Rush's pupils were dilated. God. He wasn't faking this, he wasn't being deceptive. For this one moment, Everett knew exactly where Rush was and what he was doing. 

Rush kissed him again, his mouth opening a little. Was this just an impulse on Rush's part, to treat Everett like a lover, or was this him doing his lightening fast calculations again and deciding that all their arguing and fighting had held something else that they'd both ignored?

Damned if he knew. What he did know was that he was going to make Nicholas Rush whimper with desire before he was done with him and they were frozen in time. 

It was intoxicating to think of finally, finally seeing Rush do exactly what Everett intended him to do. No side agenda known only to the other man. No ambiguity about his actions. 

And he was taking charge right now.

It was like powering up the FTL drive. Rush startled a little as their dynamics shifted to Everett's mouth dominating him, Everett's hand cupping Rush's ass, dragging him up and even closer.

He made this kiss aggressive, a mute order that Rush surrender to him; and Rush did, opening to him, laying down his defenses. 

Letting Everett in.

Everett hardened, sexual desire rising in him and it had been so long since he'd let himself feel it.

He tightened his hold on Rush more, sliding his hand under the jeans that hung low on Rush's hips. He relished how Rush was pinned against him, fingers gripping the soft, warm curve of Rush's ass. Felt Rush's erection against his belly.

Kissed him again and again, fast strikes that left Rush panting and gasping for air before Everett plundered him once more.

Rush reacted so beautifully, off-balance, doing just what Everett was demanding of him and oh, Everett was going to treasure this memory because he knew capturing Rush like this would be a fleeting thing and once they were out of this pod Rush would revert to his secrets and shuttering away his thoughts. Not like now, where it was crystal clear what he was feeling and thinking.

He gripped Rush's long hair at his nape, pulling it back and exposing his throat.

“Nicholas,” he growled, taking the name without it being offered to him. He said it with the same intonation he had been using for the last damn year when he would be so frustrated with this man, this small man who took up twice as much space as he was entitled to, so much so that Everett had always colored the name “Rush” with all his anger and frustration and worry.

He kissed Nicholas' neck, and sucked hard on the tender skin, knowing he was going to leave a bruise that would tell everyone who saw it that Nicholas Rush had been claimed long enough to leave the proof.

Nicholas made a desperate, pleading whine, and Everett felt flooded with satisfaction at the sound.

He was kissing Nicholas' mouth again when he heard Eli's voice counting down. He knew he should break them apart.

He didn't.

Blue light flashed.

* * *

To be Continued.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eli quotes Starwars and Star Trek.


	2. An Unexpected Visitor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder that the previous chapter was the prologue to this story, which will take place on both Destiny and on Earth.

**Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain**

Wes shifted on his feet and glanced over at him from the other side of the embarkation room, subtly twisting his arm so his watch face was towards Mike.

Mike rolled his eyes and nodded. _Yeah, message received, numbnuts. I can't wait for this shift to be over, either. There's a beer and a steak dinner with my name on it down at Riley's Pub and maybe this time we'll get lucky with some fine ladies._ It had been a long week, and as soon as their gate shift was over, he and Wes were heading down the mountain for some R  & R.

SG16, the last team scheduled to come back to Earth today had arrived an hour ago through the gate, strolling through like they owned the place. SG16 and SG18 in particular were a bunch of smug bastards. If he ever earned a place on a stargate team, Mike wouldn't be so condescending towards the regular joes in the program. 

Even though Mike knew they'd been expected, he'd still focused his weapon at the iris, ready to blow away any invading intruders. He'd never had to deal with enemies pouring through the gate, but all the previous foothold attempts were required reading for any personnel pulling gate room duty. 

Man, what a bunch of fubared situations. Aliens stepping through the gate and snatching a female sergeant and killing the other guards, a crystalline life form that had mimicked General O'Neill and came back with SG1 as pretty as you please, invisible phase-shifting aliens, man it all sounded like bad sci-fi movies. But it was real. 

Fucking real. 

Sergeant Patterson, crusty old bastard who'd been with the program since it had started, made sure every Marine on gate duty knew just how fucked up it could all go in just minutes.

Thank God they had the iris now to keep out unwanted visitors. Mike had heard the sickening splats as some unlucky wanna-be invaders met their ends against it. Good riddance.

He snuck a look at his watch. Thirty more minutes and then they were out of here.

He kissed that idea goodbye the second the inner circle of the stargate started to spin and the chevrons all lit up, bright orange on the stargate rim.

The klaxons sounded, the high pitch confirming that they had a situation.

“Unscheduled activation. Awaiting G.D.O code,” was announced, the speaker from the control room sounding artificially calm. 

Chevrons stayed lit.

The klaxon continued to blare, the sound echoing off the dull metal walls.

Mike knew that when this was over he was going to have a bad headache. But not now. Now, adrenaline was overriding everything else and he kept his weapon aimed directly at the iris, a gray bulls eye. 

Reinforcements arrived and took their places, all the drills they'd done making their movements automatic.

They waited for the sound of matter ending its existence against the iris. 

Nothing.

The iris slowly started to open. 

“This is an unscheduled activation. No G.D.O code has been sent. Repeat, this is an unscheduled activation. No G.D.O has been sent. We have a potential foothold situation. Lock down commencing now.”

The shield over the control room windows lowered, and the exits from the room locked with an audible click. The large overhead door, which Mike and half of the other guys had dubbed “the garage door” rolled down, sealing off the immediate gate area.

Mike felt his heart hammering as the iris opened completely.

The event horizon whooshed out into the room and subsided into a puddle of blue, beautiful and deadly.

He'd never gone through the stargate, had never touched that unearthly legacy of the Ancients.

He stared, waiting, his body tense.

The puddle started to ripple.

“Hold your fire until the word is given.” General Landry's voice rang out. 

A small figure emerged from the event horizon, stumbling and unbalanced. 

It moved like it had been shoved through the gate. It was naked. It looked human, but Mike wasn't buying that it really was a little boy.

The event horizon ended and the stargate stood empty again.

It looked up, froze for three seconds, and then dashed down the ramp, arms swinging and legs pumping. It was running for all it was worth towards a door, but when Marines moved to block it, it changed trajectory and zigzagged towards the other door. 

When it was again blockaded from the other exit, it turned and sped back towards the gate. It ran up the ramp and jumped through the stargate, falling down and rolling away from the structure. It ran to the back wall and turned, eyes darting as it took in the Marines guarding the doors.

The Lt quietly ordered half of the men, including Mike and Wes, to advance on it. They fanned out, blocking it from coming from around the gate. 

The thing saw that it was going to be trapped. Its chest was heaving, and blood was smeared on its knees and palms.

It looked afraid. It bit its lip, and balled up its fists. 

“Move in on it, but stay back about ten feet. I'll try to talk to it,” the Lt said.

They tightened their line and it slowly slid sideways against the wall until it had moved into the corner, its wide eyes watching them, its thin body shivering. 

The Lt, Mackie MacPherson stepped much closer and pointed his weapon at it. Mike watched it drop into a crouch, protecting its head with its hands. 

So far the thing hadn't made a sound. 

Lieutenant MacPherson said, “Who are you? What do you want?”

It looked up at the Lt, its messy hair falling into its eyes. It looked scared and baffled.

MacPherson repeated the message. It didn't respond, just kept that confused, terrified look on its face.

The Lt said, “I don't think it can understand us, and since it came through the stargate my words should have translated. I'm going to restrain it.”

“Sir?” Mike said. “What if it resists?”

The Lt spoke quietly into his radio, then announced softly, “The General has authorized us to zat it if it gives us any trouble. Nickels, Chan, use the first setting only. We want it alive, at least at this point.”

The two Marines stepped forward and aimed their zats at it.

The Lt pulled out plastic restraints from a pocket. He nudged the thing with a boot; it flinched and looked up at him. He said, “Hey you. Last chance to speak up. Who are you, where did you come from, how did you open the iris like that? Why are you pretending to be a kid?”

It didn't answer, but it must have known what was coming because it started to shake, its dark eyes going distant. The Lt handed his weapon off to Murphy. 

“Anderson.” Mike looked at the Lt. “Take these.” He handed the plastic restraints over and Mike gave Wes his weapon. “Secure it for me.”

He grabbed both of its tiny wrists and held them tight against each other. Mike stepped forward with the plastic tie, but the thing wiggled like an eel and sunk its teeth in the Lt's arm. 

“Son-of-a-- Chan, zat it as soon as I'm free.” The Lt yanked his arm free from the thing's mouth, blood pearling up on his skin where it had broken his skin. 

Chan hit it with a charge and it jerked, blue light flickering over its body as it collapsed.

Mike quickly secured its hands behind its back and restrained the thing's feet. He looked down at it. It was damp with sweat, but Mike saw its skin pebbling up into goosebumps. Its face still carried a trace of baby fat, making its cheeks rounded, but its chin was pointed and it had a mop of brown-blond hair. It was small, about the size of a four-year-old. It had scars on its body, the one on its chest the most noticeable. The thing looked like it had been under a surgeon's knife.

The Marines waited until it was loaded on a gurney, the Lt detailing four of them to accompany the medical staff and stand guard in the infirmary. 

Mike knew it was in for a battery of tests to find out what exactly had come through the gate, human or alien. 

But he was betting on alien. Mike had a couple of nieces and nephews the apparent age of the thing and not one of them would have reacted the way it had done. Babs would have started bawling and Jimmy wouldn't have recognized he was in danger and start running away in three seconds flat.

No way was it human.

* * * 

Carolyn was reading through lab results while she waited for the General to arrive at the infirmary, idly reaching up and touching her hair. She still found it odd that it was so short now, barely touching her ears. 

She'd already sent a preliminary report to him regarding the foundling that had showed up on their doorstep, but her father said he'd discuss her findings with her at 19:00 hours at the infirmary. 

She was betting that after she'd updated him on their visitor, he'd invite her to a late dinner and switch from being the CO of Stargate Command to her father. Her once estranged father. They had a much better relationship now after five years of working together. She'd learned to let go of her childhood resentment against the parent who had failed her. 

She laid a hand on her rounded belly. She wanted her child to know his grandfather. It was important to her, and to John. 

Thinking about her baby brought her thoughts back around to the small child lying unconscious and restrained on a gurney, a blanket tucked around him.

And he was a child, not something mimicking a child. Or at least his blood work, X-rays, MRI and PET scan supported that theory. However, he wasn't entirely human, it seemed. His brain was... odd. 

According to the Marines who'd seen him in the gateroom, he hadn't made a sound and didn't seem to understand them. 

Who had sent a naked, defenseless child through the stargate? With no way to identify the origin of the incoming wormhole, their efforts to find his people and return him were going to be difficult.

She stood and stretched, walked over to the isolation room where they were keeping the child. 

He had no signs of illness, nothing in his blood work or urine showed a contagion that might spread, but she wasn't taking any chances. She'd run decontamination procedures on him and the gate crew, much to the Marines' disgust. They were all on twenty-four quarantine.

She nodded at the four guards stationed on either side of the door to the boy's room. There was no actual reason she needed to enter to check on him. His vitals were being monitored and she could see him perfectly well through the window. She entered the area adjacent to his room and donned a haz mat suit anyway.

She laid a hand on his forehead and made sure no leads had come loose from where they were taped to his skull for the EEG that was currently recording his brain activity. She was going to bring in one of the top names in neurology to interpret this data because she'd never seen anything like it. 

The boy was unconscious. She pressed down on his chest with her knuckles and he shifted, reacting to the discomfort. 

She was relieved. He was so small to have been stunned by a zat. One of those could take down a moose, or Teal'c, let alone someone who only weighed thirty-two pounds.

She pulled away his blanket, tugged his gown up and looked him over critically. Nothing had changed since her last examination. She touched the scar on his chest. Now this intrigued her. His heart had appeared normal, and the scar's position was to the left side of it. It seemed unlikely to her that he'd had any sort of heart surgery, but the scar wasn't superficial. Someone or something had cut deeply into this child's muscles. 

She fixed his gown and blanket, tucking him in. She wondered if he had parents, and if so if they had any idea about where their son was right now.

He was intelligent; he had reacted quickly to a dangerous situation. He had good reflexes, judging by how he had been running and jumping before he was taken into custody.

She smoothed his hair, pushing the long bangs away from his face. She told herself to remain detached, that the jury was still out on whether this little entity was dangerous, was some kind of bait, or trap. If he had forced the iris to open, then he was powerful in ways they rarely saw. And if someone or something had done it for him, then he was a pawn in someone's power game. Maybe a gift, maybe a warning. Maybe a weapon to destroy them. 

But right now he looked like a little boy who'd been hurt. Who'd bled and who'd been terrified of men coming towards him with guns. 

Carolyn traced his lips with a finger, and wondered if he would ever be able to communicate with them.

“Doctor Lam?” Marcy asked, over the intercom.

“Yes?”

“General Landry is here.”

“Tell him I'll be right out after I go through de-con.”

* * *

“Carolyn.” Hank smiled at his daughter. “How about letting your old man feed you some dinner while your husband is off world?”

She pretended to think about it, which amused him. They both knew that she'd agree. “Well...” She looked at him coolly. “I've been craving Thai. As hot as I can get it.”

“You got it, honey. How's Junior?”

She laid her hand on her belly. “He's been doing flips.”

Hank grinned. “You were the same way. Drove your mother nuts some nights when she wanted to get some sleep.”

He drew her into a one-armed hug, warm against his leather flight jacket. 

“So.” He said briskly, putting aside being a father in place of being the SGC commander.

“You read my initial report?” Carolyn had also subtly shifted from being his daughter to being the Chief Medical Officer of the SGC.

“Yes. But recap it for me before moving on to any new data.”

She nodded and motioned for him to follow her. They stopped outside the isolation room their visitor was currently inhabiting, and she pointed to the monitor.

The camera was focused on their uninvited guest, and he was asleep or passed out.

“I'm not going to get too technical. All of that will be included in my recommendations.”

“Is he human?” Hank said, staring hard at the kid, wondering if he really was what he looked like.

“Yes.” She arched her eyebrows, cluing him in that she was going to qualify that statement. Of course this wouldn't be clear-cut. This was Stargate Command, after all.

She went on, “But he's something else, too. He resembles a male Caucasian child, brown-eyed, with light brownish blond hair. Physically he's the size and weight of a typical four-year-old. His bone density scans and a dental exam indicate he's actually around six years old, give or take a few months on either side of that estimate.”

“No tattoos, clan markings, or ritual scarring that could identify his people, I suppose,” he said.

“None. And he's not Jaffa. No pouch to carry a Goul'd larvae.”

Hank rubbed the back of his neck slowly, thinking. Yes. “There was a girl SG1 brought here once through the gate. Nirrti had implanted a bomb inside her and abandoned her, knowing we wouldn't leave her on that dead world on her own.”

It was before his time as CO, but he'd actually met the girl a year ago. Cassandra Frasier, adopted daughter of one of the fallen heroes of the SGC, Doctor Janet Frasier. Cassandra was in med school now, following in her mother's footsteps. She'd attended the ceremony for General Carter's promotion.

“He's cleared,” she said. “And there's no naquadah in his blood.”

“Good.” He raised his eyebrows. “I gather since he's in quarantine that he's not cleared yet from being a carrier of something nasty to spread to the rest of us.” 

“I'm keeping an eye on him for that, but nothing turned up.” She slipped off her lab coat and hung it up on wall hook. 

He nodded and looked at the kid, his features magnified by one of the monitors. He had thick lashes and a mop of hair. He looked harmless. Hank hoped to God he was. He'd hate to give the word to take him out.

Carolyn said, “He has some significant scarring on his body, most noticeably from an incision on his chest. That one looks surgical to me. He's also got a scar on his thigh from being knifed.”

“Knife scar?” 

She gave him a knowing look. “I've seen enough during my ER days and here to know one when I see one.”

“So he's been abused.”

“Perhaps,” she qualified. “He also has several healed broken bones. His right index finger. A spiral fracture of the right ulna, and the humeras of the left arm.”

“So either he's the kind of kid that jumps off roofs or somebody's been hurting him,” he said.

“He's not showing any signs of malnutrition, though. And his skin was clean and unbruised, except for what he got from his welcome to the SGC.”

Hank raised his eyebrows at her. “He became hostile and aggressive. I gave the green light to use the zat.”

“He was scared.” She frowned. “He's lucky he's going to wake up from that severe of a shock.”

“We didn't know what he was, Carolyn. Given the same set of circumstances, I'd authorize it again.”

She looked evenly at him. “I know.” She might not like to acknowledge it, but his daughter got her cool-headed approach and ability to make the hard, pragmatic decisions from him. 

“Other than still being unconscious, he seems healthy. Normal heart, bowel, and lungs. But I'm going to give orders to start an IV for fluids before we leave.” She walked over to her desk and took her purse out of a bottom desk drawer. 

He followed her. “So, what's not-so-human about him?” 

“His brain.” She shrugged. “I've never seen anything like it. His EEG readings, the PET scan, the MRI. Even while he's unconscious there's such a high level of activity. But, it's uneven. And there's a lot more abundant connections between subcortical and cortical regions in his brain than is typical for a child his age. I'm bringing in a neurologist to consult.”

“What about his DNA, what does that show?” He looked at his watch. They should get moving if they wanted to get there before the Bangkok House closed. 

Crossing her arms, she said, “Really, when it comes to DNA it depends on what we want to look at. Screening for specific genes is a lot faster than mapping out his whole genome. We've done enough to establish that he is basically human. Maybe he's got some other genes that Earth humans don't, but that's a whole new research project in itself.”

“Right. Maybe he'll decide to talk to us and all of this won't be necessary. We can just send him back to his people,” he said.

“Doctor Jackson might be able to help,” she said. “All the off-world languages he knows? Maybe the boy will talk to him. I've requested that he come by after SG1 returns tomorrow afternoon.”

“It sounds like you've done all you can do for tonight. Want to get out of here now?”

His daughter nodded. “Let me leave instructions first. If he becomes agitated I'm going to order something to help him sleep. He needs to rest.” 

Hank watched her talk to the medic on night duty. Another doctor was on call within the base, so Carolyn could go home after their dinner. 

She needed her rest, too.

 

* * *

Carolyn dropped her purse into her desk drawer and pulled up the records on the boy from yesterday. She took a sip of herbal tea, wishing it was coffee.

The boy's condition hadn't changed much overnight. He wasn't in a coma, but his EEG showed abnormal patterns of Delta waves slowing from intermittent to continuous, during his sleep cycles. The high levels of activity between the subcortical and cortical regions continued also. It was very strange.

She was relieved when the EEG shifted to a more normal pattern, indicating that he was waking up. 

Donning the protective gear, she went into the isolation room and pulled up a stool to sit next to him. She took him off the IV. When his eyes opened she smiled at him and soothingly stroked his arm. 

His dark eyes stared at her and then glanced around the room, as much as he could see from his prone position. His breathing quickened and he yanked on the restraints. She stilled his arms.

“Hello. I know things are strange for you right now, but just stay calm. If you can do that, then I'll take these off of you.”

She touched the restraints and then pantomimed removing them. She pointed at him and made a prone gesture. 

He looked at her, blinking. She undid his right wrist restraint and when he stayed quiet, she helped him to sit up. 

“That's right, young man. Stay calm like that and I'll take off the other one.”

He tried to touch the EEG leads on his scalp, making a puzzled face, but she guided his hand away from them and shook her head. 

She said “No,” and shook her head again.

He raised his hand partway and then shook his head, imitating her, and dropped his hand. He raised his gown, and looked at the catheter and she shook her head. He scrunched up his face in distaste, but he left it alone. Touching the protective suit she was wearing, he looked at his own hospital gown, then back at her.

She smiled to see the question in his eyes. There was no doubt in her mind, he was bright. 

“This protects me from any sickness you might carry. This afternoon, if you stay healthy, then I'll take it off and we'll move you to a better room. You're quite the mystery you know. Let's see if you can talk, or imitate words.” 

She pointed to herself. “Carolyn. Can you say that?”

He didn't say anything, only bit his lip. She repeated herself, saying her name more slowly, making the three syllables distinct. 

Making a gesture that it was his turn now, she waited. He opened his mouth, and then shut it. His lip started to wobble and she saw the shine of tears begin to gather in his eyes.

She wasn't a demonstrative person and was fully aware that a lot of acquaintances considered her to be something of a cold fish. She cared for her patients fiercely, but she was not the touchy-feely sort. 

So she surprised herself by loosening the other restraint and sitting down on the gurney. She lifted the boy into her lap and began rocking him. 

He was crying now, tears rolling down his face and his breathing hitching. 

No vocalizations, though.

She murmured kind words to him, and gave him what comfort she could, continuing to rock him slowly in her arms. 

He cried himself back to sleep. She laid him down but left the restraints off, a demonstration of trust that she hoped would ease the awful sense of loneliness she'd felt from him. His breathing was still erratic, catching from that silent sobbing, and it broke her heart.

He needed a name, and if he couldn't tell them his name or if he didn't know it, then she would give one to him, and not the John Doe one that was currently on his records.

Maybe Daniel would find a language this little mite would understand, but she was doubtful that he would be able to speak it. 

She checked his catheter. The next time he woke up, she'd see if he would hold still and let her remove it. If not, she could put him under for a short time.

Smoothing his hair, she thought about a name for him. Something that would have personal meaning to him, not just picked randomly from a page of names. 

She thought of how he'd bit Mackie, fighting off a man that outweighed him six times over. How he'd arrived through the stargate.

She'd find a name that suited him.

* * *

He slept for a little over two hours. He cooperated with her about removing the catheter although his hands tightened into fists.

He sighed with relief when she finished. She showed him how the toilet worked and he understood her.

He knew what a spoon was for, and used it competently. She wasn't quite ready to trust him with a fork, since it could be used as a weapon. The four guards stationed outside the isolation room were still a necessity. 

They knew nothing, really, about the boy.

She took the bandages off his hands after he'd eaten his late breakfast of oatmeal and a banana, apple juice and toast. He'd been hungry, that much was obvious.

They weren't too bad, typical scrapes for boy of his age, but she poured hydrogen peroxide over his palms anyway, the runoff catching in the basin under his hands.

He watched, fascinated, as the liquid frothed on his skin. She washed it off and went to smear some antibiotic cream on the wounds, but he pulled his hands away.

“I'm just going to put some medicine on your hands,” she said, soothingly. She put a dab on her own arm and showed it to him.

He shook his head and didn't relinquish his hands. Well, it seemed like he understood the concept of 'no' just fine.

It looked like this would be their first showdown. She held out her hand and said sternly, “Sorry, young man, but you need to let me treat you.”

He shook his head. 

She could force him, but she didn't really want to do that. She snapped her fingers, instead and repeated her order in a no-nonsense tone of voice. 

He shut his eyes instead, his face scrunched up in concentration, his hands tucked up under his arm pits. She didn't disturb him, not wanting to grab his hands when he couldn't see what she was doing. 

When he opened his eyes, he looked exhausted. She moved her hand slowly and pulled his left hand free. 

She turned it over, ready to put on the ointment and bandages again.

She started, shocked, then pulled his other hand free. 

It was the same. She took the bandages off his knees and ran her finger over the smooth skin. 

The wounds on his hands and knees were gone. In their place was healthy skin. 

He smiled at her with a cocky grin, pleased with himself. Then he yawned and his eyes closed. 

He laid down and was asleep within moments. 

Alien, she thought. He really is an alien. 

But he was a child in need of protection, too.

She intended to make sure he received it.

* * *

He slept for seven hours, and was still groggy afterwards, eating his food slowly, and pushing away half of it. 

She drew blood from him again, and he let her do it without fighting her about it, although he stuck his lower lip out when the needle pricked his arm, looking at her reproachfully.

There was nothing in his blood or urine that indicated a virus or bacteria that would warrant continued quarantine, and it had been twenty-four hours since he was brought into the infirmary. She took off her de-con suit.

She could have delegated taking the EEG leads off his scalp to a nurse, but other than clearing the gatreroom team from quarantine, which she had already done, the infirmary was quiet. She wanted to keep assessing the boy, seeing if there were any other talents he would manifest.

He squirmed quite a lot, and made a variety of disgusted faces as she unhooked the EEG and washed the gook out of his hair, but was as cooperative as anybody could expect from a six-year-old. 

He was starting to pick up some English on the comprehension level as she explained the parts of the body to him; he was soon able to point to his eyes or his hair when she would say the word. 

Becca brought in some clean clothes for him, and she showed him the shower and soap. He didn't want her to help him, pushing her towards the door; after making sure the water wasn't too hot, she left him alone. 

He dressed himself, but put his green T-shirt on backwards. She fixed it and tied his shoes for him.

He promptly untied them and tried to do it himself. She showed him again and he watched her intently.

He pulled the strings loose and tried once more, successfully this time. The cocky look on his face was endearing, and she ruffled his hair.

Not too much later after that he regained his energy and started pulling open drawers and cabinets. 

She told him 'No' and he pretended to not understand her so he could keep on peeking inside at them and picking through the contents. 

He had his first experience with time-out after that. 

She needed to move him into an environment where he could explore and play safely. There was no reason for him to be in the infirmary, but she was the only person he'd made any connection with and she was reluctant to send him away now, especially after she'd disciplined him. He might see a change in environment as abandonment and she wouldn't be with him like she was now. 

He had crossed his arms over his chest while he sat in the chair looking unrepentant, her phone alarm set to go off after five minutes. She'd showed it to him and had made it clear he had to sit there until it beeped. 

He was going to be a handful. 

She wondered who might have toys in their office, something to keep him occupied until Daniel could see him. 

She left Becca to watch him and sent out a mass email to the SGC. 

She was almost certain that Jay Felger had legos. If he could be persuaded to share them, that might keep her little troublemaker busy.

Siler came into the infirmary to do some routine maintenance. She'd been expecting someone from his department over the last two days. She was surprised Siler had come, though. He generally worked on much more high level projects than what the infirmary needed done. He nodded to her and went to a corner and started working, prying off panels and opening his tool box.

She went back into the isolation room and nodded to Becca, releasing her from babysitting. She turned the chair around and crouched down in front of him. 

He wouldn't look at her. She cupped his little face and his eyes flew to hers. 

“You need to be a good boy and not do things when you're told 'No,'” she said, trusting that her tone of voice and his understanding of what 'No' meant would communicate her intent to him.

He stared at her for a moment, and then his lip started to give away that he was on the verge of crying again. 

She stood up and gathered him into her arms. He clung to her, his legs wrapping around her waist, his arms tightly wound around her neck. 

She carried him out of isolation and over to her desk. “You're all right, you're all right, sweetheart,” she said to him, over and over, rubbing his back until the tenseness eased from his body. 

He wiggled a little, and she plunked him down in her desk chair. She held up a finger and arched her eyebrows at him and he stopped his slide to the floor. He looked warily at the Marines who had moved much closer to him, and she put her hand on his head. 

“They won't hurt you, but you need to stay here.” She pointed to the chair and repeated herself. He glanced from her to them but didn't move. 

She opened a side drawer on her desk and fished out her old Ipod and a set of earplugs. She showed it to him, showed him how to turn it on and how to access the songs on it. Then she placed the earplugs in his ears and let him experience the music.

His mouth opened as a song from several years ago started playing. He started swaying to the beat of _Six White Horses_ a Gillian Welch song with an old-timey mountain sound. She wasn't sure she wanted to introduce him to any hard rock. But this song and the others on _The Harrow and the Harvest_ album were fairly quiet. He started tapping his fingers on the desk and she busied herself with sending out the EEG readings to two top neurologists with security clearances.

“Ma'am?” One of the Marines on guard duty interrupted her train of thought about healing abilities and EEG patterns. She was positive that Dr. Frasier's old records might prove helpful. 

“Yes, Corporal?” But even as she said it she was turning to glance at her desk. Her troublemaker wasn't there. 

“He's with Sergeant Siler, ma'am. We're keeping an eye on him. He's not doing anything much, just watching Sergeant Siler work.”

She had taken her eyes off him for only a minute. She shook her head and wondered briefly just how difficult becoming a mother was going to be. “Thank you, Corporal.”

“He's fast, ma'am. And quiet. I didn't think we needed to zat him again, though.”

She looked over to where Siler was working flat on his back, his head and shoulders inside the open wall, the panels he'd removed stacked up to one side. The boy was imitating him, his small body lying right next to Siler's. He had scooted up so that he, too, could see inside the wall. 

“No,” she said to Corporal Miles, sighing. “He's too small to handle that kind of shock very well.” She'd have to put him in timeout again. For his own safety, he needed to learn to follow directions. Not all of his guards would be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt if he darted away.

The phone call she had to take delayed her from dealing with her little troublemaker for fifteen minutes. She could see that he was behaving, though, paying attention to whatever Siler was doing. She trusted that if it was inappropriate for the boy to be down there with him, Siler would have turned him over to her or the guards.

She walked over and surveyed the two pairs of legs, large and small, that were sticking out of the wall. Siler's were covered in the bright blue coveralls of the tech department, the boy wore blue jeans, his new red sneakers tapping against each other.

She dropped slowly into a crouch and looked inside. “Master Sergeant?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Siler said. He kept on tightening up a connection over his head.

“I see you've met our visitor.” The boy was watching her now, and from the look on his face, he knew he shouldn't be there.

“Yes, ma'am. He's okay here. I'm not doing anything dangerous, and my boys and my girl all did the same thing when they were his size. I'm used to it.”

“You know, I was surprised to see you working here. I know how busy you are,” she said.

Siler gave a small shrug of his shoulders. “The SGC docs have always taken good care of me, ma'am. I just like returning the favor.”

“Thank you, Master Sergeant. I'm sorry that our visitor disturbed you. He won't be doing it anymore.”

“Actually, ma'am, I'm fine with him being here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, ma'am. He likes being my helper.” He reached out a palm and the boy dropped a screw into it. 

“All right. But I'm afraid he's going to have to go to timeout for five minutes.”

“I understand, ma'am. You told him to stay put and he didn't. I'll back you up if he fusses.”

Siler was good. With a look, he got the boy to cooperate with her. When the boy was sitting back in the chair, Siler folded his tall body down so that he was at eye level with him. 

“Little man, you sit here till that alarm goes off,” he pointed to her phone alarm on the desk, “and then you can be my helper again.” He waved a hand towards where he'd been working. “Okay?” he said, nodding his head. He held out a screw and when the boy mimicked him by nodding, he handed it over. 

Siler ignored the longing looks the boy gave him during the timeout, but as soon as the phone alarm went off, he walked to him and tousled the boy's hair. He held out his hand and the boy took it; he walked him over to where she was standing, observing them both.

He gave the boy a small push in her direction; the child scuffed one sneaker against the floor. She knelt down and he looked at her, his dark eyes uncertain. She opened her arms and he hugged her. 

She smoothed his hair, tucked a few soft strands behind his ear. “Be good.” She pointed to Siler. “Listen to Master Sergeant Siler.”

Siler took the boy's hand again and they went back to work. 

* * *

SG1 was late. They wouldn't be returning until the morning. She needed to get the boy settled into a room. She'd put Marta in charge of gathering up the donated toys and fixing up one of the guest rooms, the ones that locked from the outside, for the boy. 

He needed a name. If Daniel couldn't figure out where he belonged tomorrow, then she was going to put his name down as Malin Tripp. Malin meant strong little warrior, and Tripp meant traveler. She might have been spending too much time on the baby naming sites on the internet.

He and Siler had finished putting all the panels back into place, and the child was currently sitting in Siler's lap, the two of them leaning against the wall. To her eye, the boy was getting sleepy. 

Siler was probably done for the day and deserved to go home. She got up from her desk to take over from him, when the infirmary alarms started blaring.

The loudspeaker announced that SG19 was returning with wounded. She sent a triage team down to the gate room, and she and Marta began prepping for the injured.

Siler approached her, one hand on the boy's shoulder. “Ma'am, he shouldn't see the wounded. There's a room ready for him?” 

“Yes. But I can't spare any of my staff right now to get him settled in.”

“I'll do it. Does he have anything up here to take down?”

“No. Are you sure, Master Sergeant?” 

“Yes, ma'am.” He tousled the boy's hair and the child tipped his head backwards and smiled up at the tall man.

“It's obvious that he's attached himself to you. He didn't approach any of the nurses or the Marines like he did you.”

“He's a good boy.” Siler laid his hand on the boy's head.

She looked at him warningly. “We still don't know if he's dangerous, Master Sergeant. You'll need to stay aware of that. He can heal himself, and we just don't know what other talents he might manifest.”

“Yes, ma'am. I haven't relaxed my guard. I've seen a lot of strange stuff since being posted here. But, he's a little boy, whatever else he is. If one of mine had gotten lost, and ended up like him... Well, ma'am. I'm willing to help out with him.” 

“Thank you,” she said. “You'd better go, before we get busy in here."

She crouched down, a little awkwardly because of her belly, and cupped the boy's face. 

“Behave, young man.” She pointed to Siler. “Listen to him, he's going to take you to your new room.”

She hugged him then, and told Siler the floor and room number. The Marines flanked them as they left, the boy holding Siler's hand tightly.

She watched them leave. When the door opened to the corridor, the boy turned around and looked at her, biting his lip. 

She smiled at him and waved goodbye.

He returned the gesture and then Siler picked him up and carried him out the door, his head on Siler's shoulder, but still keeping eye contact with her.

She put her hand on her belly, just a moment of respite, and as the gurneys were pushed into the room, she asked, briskly, “What have we got here?”

 

* * *


	3. Malin

Whap! Another Wormhole X-treme figure, Dr. Levant this time, hit the wall as hard as the kid could throw it and joined Grell the Robot and Colonel Danning on the floor. 

“You know,” Daniel said, lifting his eyebrows and rolling his shoulders, “It's kind of therapeutic watching this. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to do the same thing.” He shifted his feet and glanced around the infirmary and then resumed watching Malin's furious little face on the monitor.

“Mmm,” Carolyn murmured. She'd seen Daniel engaged in a few academic fits disguised as discussions, throwing words at his opponent just as hard as Malin was hurling the poor toys at the wall of the room he'd been in since last night. 

“Darling,” Vala drawled, insolence and amusement in her tone, “don't you people say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?” She treated Daniel to an exaggerated pout. “I would be delighted to have an adorable doll modeled after me.”

“They're not dolls, Vala. They're called action figures,” Daniel said, with the impatient air of one who had pointed that out before. Many times before. 

Vala winked at her, and continued to wind Daniel up. “Really? But a doll is a representation of a person, and look, Dr. Levant is sooo you, Daniel.” She draped herself against Daniel, who rolled his eyes. He didn't push her away to stand on her own, though. 

Thwack! Major Monroe hit the wall so hard her head separated from her body, and attention was focused again on the recording of Malin's earlier temper tantrum. 

A Rubik’s cube was the next toy to fly through the air. A container of Legos followed, bursting open and showering the floor with red and yellow and blue rectangles and squares.

“Legos,' said Daniel, “lost their charm for me after dealing with the Replicators.” 

“Indeed.” At the unexpected sound of Teal'c's deep voice, Carolyn paused the recording and turned around. 

Teal'c inclined his head towards her, his usual respectful greeting. “Dr. Lam. Colonel Mitchell is also cleared to leave.” 

Mitchell joined them. Vala and Daniel separated to move closer to Teal'c and Mitchell, who slapped Daniel on the arm. 

“Debrief is scheduled at 14 hundred hours, guys. Hey, Dr. Lam. So, is this the kid who came through the gate?”

“Yes,” Carolyn said. She told them what they had learned about him, his strange brain activity, his healing ability, his inability to make any sounds. How he'd had several nightmares during the night, but hadn't woken up from them.

He'd been happy to see her at breakfast but hadn't wanted to stay in the room. Unfortunately, she had meetings she couldn't get out of, so she arranged for a nurse to stay with him. He'd hadn't taken to the nurse and ignored her, despite her attempts to interest him in the toys that had been deposited in the room. 

Siler had stopped by also, and she backed up the recording, turning down the sound.

“ Malin's able to form attachments. He's taken a real shine to Master Sergeant Siler.” 

They watched how Malin had lit up, had hugged Siler's legs and practically climbed up the man. Siler let him walk up his body, and then the boy did a flip, landing on his feet, grinning widely. She paused the recording again. 

Siler hadn't been able to stay very long; a semi-crisis had needed his attention and Malin hadn't been very happy to see him go.

Still, he was good for a while, she continued telling them. He'd looked at some magazines, and examined the action figures Walter had scrounged up from somewhere. 

He'd played with the Rubik's cube the most, and had gotten one side right. 

Mitchell said, “Getting even one side correct must have been a fluke. Do you have any idea how much time I've wasted on that thing?”

Daniel asked, “So what set him off?”

Carolyn said, “The nurses' shift change. He tried to get out the door as soon as it opened and when he was blocked, he blew up.”

“Change is probably hard for him right now. Even if he didn't really connect with the first nurse, her leaving probably unsettled him. So, what's he doing now?” Daniel looked sympathetically at the frozen image of Malin and Siler. She knew something about Daniel's early years. He probably had a pretty good idea of what Malin was feeling.

“You're probably right about the effect of changes in his routine, but I think he was also miffed at not being able to leave. He started crying after he'd thrown all the toys. The new nurse tried to comfort him, but he pushed her away and hid under the bed. She shoved a pillow and blanket in there with him and he fell asleep under there.”

She changed the screen so it was back in real time. Siler and Malin were building something with the Legos. 

“Master Sergeant Siler returned to the boy,” Teal'c said. “This is not part of his duties.”

“No. Siler's been very kind to him, and Malin listens to him. He got him to pick up all the toys. And Malin just likes him a lot,” Carolyn said. “Siler's agreed to stay in the room when Daniel and Vala try to find a language Malin knows.”

“Let's get some lunch. I hear that the mess is serving chili today. And cornbread,” Mitchell said. “Dr. Lam, want to come with?”

She shook her head. “I can't. I've got meetings scheduled all day, and I won't be able to be there when Daniel and Vala talk to Malin. I'm going to review the footage, though.” It was nice of Mitchell to ask her, she thought. Mitchell had a knack for bringing people together. She was looking at the results of his persistence right now, as the members of SG1 started heading for the door. 

Except for Daniel. Something on the monitor had stopped him from moving away. 

She glanced at the screen. Malin was alone in the room, standing by the door with his arms crossed over his chest and one leg canted forward. He had a look of concentration on his face.

Daniel gestured toward the monitor. “Siler just left. He got a call on the radio, and he told Malin he'd be back as soon as he could. He used gestures to explain himself.”

Vala said, “Our Daniel can read lips. It's very annoying when one is making a private observation.”

Daniel pursed his lips, his expression thoughtful. “He tried the door already. There's something about that look on his face...”

“Lunch, guys. Then go and talk to him,” Mitchell said. “I'm holding you responsible, Jackson, if they run out of cornbread.”

“I'll send a nurse back down.” Carolyn gestured to Becca, but halted as Daniel suddenly leaned forward and made an interested hum that he usually reserved for archeological discoveries. 

“Umm... guys?”

The rest of SG1 looked at Daniel, who pointed at the monitor. Malin was touching the door handle. It moved.

“Self-healing isn't the only ability Malin's got,” Daniel said. 

They watched as Malin's small hand opened the door a crack. 

“Crap,” Mitchell said, and thumbed his radio, stepping away.

“Telekinesis,” Daniel said, a fascinated look on his face.

“Telekinesis,” Vala echoed. “Now that could be a very... useful talent.”

Carolyn listened to Mitchell warning the team on guard duty that Malin was going to make a break for it as she ran out of the room. Telekinesis, she thought, meant that Malin would be put under even more scrutiny as an alien being. She hoped to God that Daniel and Vala found out where he came from, so he could be sent back. His chances of living a normal life here on Earth had just dropped significantly.

* * *

Two Marines armed with zats were now stationed on the inside door of Malin's room by the time Daniel arrived with Vala in tow. Carolyn was sitting on the child's bed, with Malin leaning against her. He looked a little wide-eyed to Daniel. 

Maybe he hadn't known about the guards on the other side of the door. 

He was watching the Marines now, a wary look on his face. 

“Hi,” Daniel said, dropping down to a crouch in front of Malin and Carolyn. He pointed to himself. “Daniel.” He pointed to Vala and said her whole name. Vala prided herself on it, after all. 

“Where's Carolyn,” he asked in a calm tone.

Malin looked at Dr. Lam and touched her arm. So, Dr. Lam was right. The boy was capable of comprehension and learning language. 

“This is going to take a while, let's move to the table,” he told Dr. Lam, and he and Vala found seats there while Dr. Lam got Malin settled in a chair. She stood behind him, her hands on his shoulders.

Daniel took a deep breath. “The fact that Malin has come through the stargate, which as we know, can effect the brain so that unknown languages are readily comprehendable, is as important to our understanding of who and what Malin is as is his ability to self-heal and use telekinesis. It is likely that there are other talents that he has that he either does not know he possesses or he has chosen to keep to himself.” He caught Dr. Lam's eye. “There is no physiological reason that Malin can't make sounds, is there?”

“No,” she said.

“How complete was the DNA testing?”

“Some results are still coming in. He's human, though. Or at least all the scans indicate that he is. I haven't had time yet, but after my meeting I'm going to go back through the records and compare his EEG at the time he healed himself to other EEG records of people healing themselves or others.” She tucked some strands of Malin's hair back behind his ear. 

“All right.” Daniel said, smiling at Malin. “It's too bad he was naked when he came through the gate. We might have been given a clue by any clothing he had. Let's try to see if he recognizes any languages we know.” 

“Let's take turns, shall we, darling?” Vala said smoothly. “I wouldn't want to be bored waiting for you to run through all those languages rattling around in your head.” 

She patted Malin's hand gently. He looked at her, questioningly, and she grinned at him cheerfully. “I'll go first. Tal shal mak.” She continued on for a few more sentences. Malin's face wrinkled up in puzzlement. So while he didn't understand that Vala had ordered him to identify himself in Goul'd, the harsh sound of the language had caught his attention. 

“Dr. Lam, he noticed it was a different language,” Daniel said.

Carolyn nodded. “He's very bright. Probably he doesn't come from a world where Goul'd is spoken. I doubted that anyway, since he doesn't have a pouch.”

Daniel said, “Malin,” and the boy looked at him. So he was responding to the name Carolyn had bestowed upon him. 

In Hebridian, he asked if Malin knew his real name and if he understood what Daniel was saying.

Another puzzled look was Malin's response. 

It was going to be a long afternoon.

* * *

They took a break when Siler and Cam entered the room. 

Malin shrugged off Carolyn's hands and slid out of his chair and under the table, popping out the other side and dashing over to Siler. 

The unexpected move had the two Marines aiming their zats right at the boy.

“Stand down,” Cam said. 

The Marines resumed their positions by the door, and Daniel caught Cam's eye. They both knew that having Colonel Cam Mitchell give that order had resulted in a faster result than if Dr. Daniel Jackson had given it, or Dr. Lam. He and Carolyn would have had to reason with the Marines before they agreed to holster their zats. Cam had gotten immediate compliance.

Siler had picked up the boy, who was hugging him around the neck.

“Does he have any idea that he almost got himself zatted again?” Daniel asked the room in general.

“I think so, Dr. Jackson. His heart's really pounding,” Siler said, his arms wrapped around Malin.

Carolyn walked over to Siler and Malin, and patted Malin on the back.  
“I really need to go. I've delayed a meeting that I really shouldn't have delayed. When you have to leave, Master Sergeant, call the infirmary to send down a nurse to stay with Malin.”

After she said Malin's name, he looked at her. She touched his nose and said sternly, “Be good.” She pointed to the door and said, “No. Don't open it, Malin. No.”

He got a stubborn look on his face. Daniel said, softly, “Oh, he's going to be a handful.”

Carolyn sighed. “He's got a mind of his own, that's for sure. But I really don't think he was planning on taking over the base. He's attached to Master Sergeant Siler, and he wanted to find him. And I have to go.”

She smoothed down Malin's hair and walked over to the door. 

“Goodbye, Malin,” she said, waving at him.

Malin waved back, the stubborn look gone now. He looked vulnerable. A little scared. He was dealing with people he didn't know, didn't know where he was or why he had to be here. And one of the two people he'd connected to was walking out the door. 

Daniel knew how that felt. He didn't want to remember those days, when he was little and his whole world had crashed down when the exhibit his parents were working on had collapsed. 

He wouldn't. 

Vala grasped his hand, squeezed it hard. She always knew when to drop the adventurer of the galaxies persona and just be Vala for him. He squeezed back and let go, settled again.

Siler deposited Malin back into a chair, and Cam said, “You guys missed lunch.”

“Yes,” he drawled the word out, and Cam raised his eyebrows.

“Always attitude with you, Jackson. I brought lunch. Let's eat.”

* * * 

Cam insisted on buttering a piece of cornbread and dripping honey on it, and then presenting it to Malin, who had migrated from his own chair and was now sitting in Siler's lap.

He made motions to try it and Malin took a tiny bite. His expression changed and he quickly ate the rest of it. He smiled at Cam and made a 'gimme' motion with his hand. Cam fixed him a second piece and stood up. Malin waved goodbye and ate the rest of his cornbread contentedly, scattering crumbs on his clothes. 

Daniel said, “You might have made a new friend, Cam.”

Cam snorted. “He's a boy, right? Best way to a boy's heart is through food. Well, good food. I'll leave you guys to keep figuring this kid out.”

“Cam, would you do me a favor?” Daniel and Vala had gone through a lot of off world languages, with no results. Before he tried the one language he was beginning to suspect Malin might know, he wanted to eliminate the others. It would be so much easier to be wrong about the boy and find out he was Salish or Byrsa.

“What, Jackson?”

“Would you go to my lab and bring me that gizmo that I give to Jack to fiddle with when he comes around?”

“Your decoy so he'll keep his hands off the other artifacts?” Cam asked, a little puzzled.

“That's the one.”

“Okay.”

With Cam gone and the lunch cleared away, he and Vala resumed their questioning. He had started on Earth languages, eliminating Spanish, Russian, Italian, French, and Gaelic. Malin was getting bored, and kept shooting looks over at the toys on a bookcase. 

The Marines moved aside and let Cam back into the room. He strode over to them. 

“Hiya, kid. Here, catch.” Cam gave a gentle toss and the bluish-green octagon sailed through the air, Malin catching it with both hands.

It immediately lit up and started projecting images of stars and galaxies into the air. Malin's mouth fell open in surprise, his eyes wondering.

“Malin, quomodo vales? Ubi sant, populi?” Daniel asked. Malin turned to look at him, a look of relief on his face, then he shook his head no.

“Scio me nihil scire. Quid agis Astria Porta?” Daniel asked gently.

Malin shrugged his shoulders and pointed to his head with one hand, holding tightly to the artifact with the other. He shook his head no again.

Daniel pointed to himself and to Vala, Cam, and Siler, saying, “Amacus, amacus, amacus, amacus. Stamus contra malum.”

“Daniel?” Vala asked, softly, eyes on Malin. 

“I told him we were friends, that we're the good guys, that I didn't know anything and asked him about coming through the stargate,” Daniel answered.

Malin snuggled back against Siler, and looked hard at Daniel and Vala and Cam. “Panis?” Daniel asked, and Malin leaned forward and picked up the last piece of cornbread Cam had left for Malin. He handed it to Daniel, his eyes intent on Daniel's.

“Indeo disce veritas. Antique?” Malin shrugged. By the look of comprehension on his face, clearly he had understood that Daniel had asked for truth, if Malin was an Ancient. Clearly, the boy didn't know. 

“Daniel? He understood you. What language is that?” Vala asked.

“It's Ancient. He's got the ATA gene, that's what made the artifact work. Vala, he's got the gene, he's demonstrated two Ancient abilities, healing and telekinesis.”

“The Ancients. Do you think he's an Ancient? Dr. Lam said his DNA was human,” Cam asked.

“She said probably human. Remember, some results aren't back yet.” Daniel got up from his chair and started pacing a little. “But he has abnormal for humans brain activity. I don't think he's totally an Ancient, but maybe a human-Ancient hybrid?”

“Where did he come from then?” Vala asked.

“He doesn't know, Vala. But we've got a starting point now.”

Siler spoke up. “Dr. Jackson, what now? There's no group of Ancient-humans are there?”

“Not that we've met. Well, except for us of course. The Tauri. Our population includes people like General O'Neill and Colonel Shepherd and Dr. Rush, all of whom have a very strong expression of the ATA gene. But they don't have this boy's other skills.”

“So, he's not going home,” Vala said, the smile she was directing at Malin disguising her words.

“No. No, he's not,” Daniel said.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Ancient Daniel uses to question Malin is entirely my fault, as I used medieval Latin sources and Ancient from a Stargate wiki.


	4. More Questions Than Answers

“I'm sorry, Malin, but yes, you are going to get more shots,” Carolyn said firmly to Malin, who was sitting on a gurney frowning and swinging his legs. 

This was the first time he'd seen Malin since returning yesterday through the gate. Carolyn had asked him to help her with the boy. Daniel repeated Dr. Lam's words in Ancient and signed them in ASL. They had done this four weeks before, with the first round of immunizations. Malin hadn't cried, but afterwards he'd quite vigorously made his displeasure about the procedure known. Daniel had only taught him a few words in ASL before he'd gotten the nine shots, but afterwards he'd signed the words for no, anger, and hurt. 

Malin emphatically shook his head no several times, his hair fanning out. Suddenly, the hypodermic needle in Carolyn's hand was wrenched away and dropped in the trash. Daniel sighed. Malin had really been getting the hang of using telekinesis over the last several weeks. 

Carolyn gave the boy a level look. “Time out, Malin.” 

That word didn't need to be translated. Malin knew what it meant very well by now. 

Malin pouted but didn't make any further fuss as Carolyn lifted him down from the gurney and walked him over to a chair. She set her phone alarm and showed it to the boy, placing it on the desk. Then she walked away, leaving Malin to slouch in the chair, waiting. 

“So,” Daniel said, keeping an eye on the boy, “as Jack drilled into my head, what do we have and what do we need, for Malin.” SG1 had been gone for almost a month on their last mission and Daniel wasn't sure what was going on with their little star traveler.

Carolyn put her hands in her lab coat pockets. “We know a little more about his abilities. I did match his EEG pattern when he was healing his hands and knees to another person's. Want to see for yourself?”

“Uh, sure.” 

Daniel followed her to a computer station and Carolyn called up two sets of EEG readings. She pointed to the one on the left. “That's Malin's. Care to make an educated guess about who the other one belonged to?”

“I'm not sure. One of the Tokra, maybe, or Sam, um, General Carter, when using the Goa'uld healing device?” Daniel asked, his brow furrowed, thinking about Malin's ability to intraconvert matter and energy when healing himself.

“No. Although I'll have to see if we do have any records like that. No, this was the EEG of the Ancient woman found frozen in the ice at Antarctica. You, I believe, were ascended during that time. She cured several people of what Dr. Frasier believed was the Ancient plague, before dying.” Carolyn manipulated the computer and the projection disappeared.

“Yes. I remember reading the mission report. She died before she could help Jack and he was put in stasis until he joined with a Tokra symbiote. That went well, after that.” Jack said that Daniel had visited him while he was in Ba'al's prison, but Daniel had no memories of his time as an ascended being. Neither time. 

“The other EEG's of Ayiana don't show much in common with Malin's, though. He's still showing abnormal brain activity, but his behavior for the most part is typical of a six-year-old human child.” She brought up a different file in slide show format and they watched Malin building something with Legos.

Her phone alarm went off. She went over to Malin and brought him back to the gurney while Daniel watched the slide show of Malin coloring and making blue figures out of play-do and twisting the Rubik's cube. 

“He was learning sign language and to understand English when we left for our last mission. How's that coming along?” Daniel was betting that Malin was a fast learner. 

She got out another hypodermic needle and Daniel saw Malin cross his arms. “Very, very well. I had wanted to wait before starting him on reading and writing, just immerse him in the oral language first, but he's been teaching himself to read from the picture books he looks at. Which, for the most part, don't really hold his interest. He seems to despise most of the fairy tales, especially the ones with animals that act like humans. It's pretty funny to watch him look at, oh, for example, the three little pigs. He thinks the first two pigs were stupid for using straw and sticks, and while he approves of the third pig's use of bricks and how he caught the wolf, Malin thinks it's silly to have pigs dressing in clothes and living in houses. He loves the dinosaur books, though.”

“So he likes things that are grounded in reality. He'll like learning about science, I bet.” Daniel studied Malin. Small for his age, not afraid to say what he thought, curious and not very willing to follow rules just because he was told to do so. Malin was pretty independent for a six-year-old. But he still had a six-year-old's need for love and support; he needed to be able to trust in the adults who were caring for him. He needed parents, not nurses in shifts, not guards. 

Maybe... But no. He wasn't in any position to offer a secure home for Malin. Not as long as he was on a gate team. 

“He's healthy? Do you think he's adjusting to being here?” Daniel closed the computer file and joined her by Malin's gurney.

“Yes, physically he's fine.” Carolyn said, giving Malin a no-nonsense look as she prepared to give him his shots. “But he's still having nightmares. He has them every night. He wakes up from them, clearly distressed, but falls asleep again usually right away.”

“He's still under guard, I noticed.” Daniel glanced at the two Marines who had stationed themselves on the inside of the Infirmary door.

Carolyn nodded. “He really doesn't like the guards watching him, but General Landry insists on it. And with Malin's ability to manipulate locks, I can see his point. He says he wants Malin off his base, but until he's sure the boy isn't dangerous he's not going to allow him to leave, not even to go topside for some fresh air and to play. I'm giving him Vitamin D supplements for now.”

She glanced at Daniel. “Will you interpret for me again?”

“Of course.”

“Okay,” she said. “I'm going to explain why he needs the shots and remind him that Sergeant Siler promised to let him help him fix the base, as long as he's been a good boy.”

Daniel listened to her explain about diseases and vaccinations, then he translated in both Ancient and sign language. Malin listened, obviously thinking, and then asked a question, his hands flying. 

“What did he say?” Carolyn asked. “If he stays here much longer, I'm going to have to learn ASL, too.”

“He wants to see the germs for himself. How about we let him look through a microscope as a reward for getting his shots without trying to stop you?” Daniel shot her a hopeful look. 

Carolyn smiled at Malin and ruffled his hair. The child needed a haircut but when he'd been asked about cutting that mop, he'd refused. He had so little autonomy over his life that she hadn't wanted to take the choice from him. 

“Malin.” He looked at her. “Yes.” She showed him the hypodermic needle and then pointed to a microscope at a lab station. “Yes.”

He let her give him the shots, four this time, two in each arm, biting down on his lip. 

He didn't cry. Daniel smoothed the hair on Malin's head before glancing over at her.

“Dr. Lam, we didn't finish my assessment. What does Malin need?”

“A home, Dr. Jackson. And I don't know if we can give him one.”

* * *

Sly tucked Malin into bed, and kissed him on his forehead. Malin grabbed his hand, not wanting Sly to leave. 

“Go to sleep, Malin. I'll see you tomorrow. If you don't throw any fits, then you can help me measure conduit. I could use a good helper.” Malin stared at him with those dark eyes of his and then signed that he'd behave. He let go of Sly's hand and pointed at the kid's toolbox on the toy shelf. Sly had bought it for him and had filled it with things that couldn't be easily used as a weapon. That meant no screwdrivers or hammers, but measuring tapes, and a plastic speed square, and a plastic level and lots of plastic clamps. 

“Yes, you'll need your tool box. Now close your eyes, honey. Sweet dreams.”

Malin closed his eyes. Sly doubted that his sleep would be restful, though. Malin's nightmares seemed to be getting worse and worse. 

The boy had been on base for three months now, but General Landry had yet to authorize him leaving. Something was going to have to change, though. Malin shouldn't have to grow up a prisoner of the SGC. 

He'd told Mary about the boy. Well, not that he was an alien child and not that he could move things with his mind and not that he could do some self-healing. And not that he'd arrived through the stargate after he'd opened the iris, or something else had opened it for him. 

Mary knew he his assignment was at Cheyenne Mountain, but she didn't know about the stargate program. All Sly had told her was that a little boy visited the Mountain a lot and had taken a shine to him. He was a special needs child and couldn't talk, but he was a bright little thing. 

He needed to get Mary security clearance to really discuss Malin, because Sly was thinking of offering to adopt him. And before things progressed to that point, Mary should meet him and know exactly what they'd be getting themselves into, as adoptive parents to a boy like him.

He remembered Dr. Frasier's little girl, Cassie. Dr. Frasier had adopted her, even though she was an alien kid. There was a precedent for this sort of thing to happen. 

Maybe someone else was thinking of taking Malin. Dr. Lam, or maybe Daniel Jackson. Daniel Jackson had wanted the child of his wife, Sly knew he had. Sly knew a lot about what went on around the SGC, probably as much as Walter did, and everybody knew that there were no secrets from Walter. 

Daniel was a good man, and he'd be a good father. He'd given Shifu, his wife's boy, up to save him. When Shifu had returned to visit Daniel, he'd wanted the boy to stay. The boy had done that thing where he'd told them he was teaching Daniel through a dream. Daniel had been unconscious during that time, and when he awoke, Shifu left. 

Shifu had been ascended because he was harsesis. A child of two Goa'uld hosts, and Oma Desala, the Ancient that had ascended Daniel, had protected Shifu, had taught him to not engage with the evil the boy had inherited from the Goa'uld. Shifu had been unearthly, and wise, and had never really acted like a human kid. He'd been more like a mini-Buddha.

Malin, on the other hand, got grumpy and sulked and sometimes threw fits, and hugged Sly hard around the neck and loved kicking balls and cried when he got too frustrated or too lonely. He was smart. He'd picked up on English pretty well and could write words and sentences in English, but not in Ancient or read any Ancient, and his little hands and fingers flew when he was signing. He had a disability in math, besides not being able to form sounds. He could copy numbers but the concepts of one to one correspondence and adding and subtracting seemed to elude him. He was curious about everything and disdainful about most of the whimsical children's picture books. He loved science based books and computer games, though. 

Malin loved being his helper. His little face just shone when he was allowed to “help' Sly with fixing things. 

Malin, for being part Ancient, was entirely human to Sly. He needed parents. He thought Mary would take to him, if she ever got to meet him. 

The lights dimmed on his way out of the room, Malin's telekinesis at work again, although with two guards stationed in front of the door it was really a cell. 

He'd talk with Dr. Lam tomorrow, see if she could persuade her father to consider looking into adoption for the boy. She was Malin's advocate, a position that the IOA had confirmed, but she was pregnant and would be out on leave soon. 

Even if he and Mary – and he absolutely couldn't ask for Malin without her say so – offered to adopt Malin, if there were other interested parties, then they might not get him.

He didn't want that. He was as attached to the little guy as Malin was to him, starting from that first encounter when Malin, his mop of hair falling into his curious eyes, had looked into the open wall panel in the Infirmary and had quirked an interested grin at him before lying down on his back, imitating Sly.

He and Mary had raised five kids. Benny, their youngest, was fifteen now. They could take on one more.

* * *

 

Malin looked up from the computer screen where the illustration of a nine months baby in utero was displayed. 

He made a cradle motion with both hands, and then made the sign for girl and then boy and then laid a gentle hand on her belly. 

“The baby is a boy,” Carolyn said.

She was taking maternity leave tomorrow. And one of the the last things she needed to take care of was to send an updated report on Malin to her father and the IOA. 

The IOA had gotten involved when it became clear that the child who'd been sent through the gate with Ancient powers would have to stay on Earth. So, far, they'd been hands off, other than to insist that she, as the child's physician, be appointed his guardian ad litem. That was fine with her, she approved of being the court appointed advocate for her little troublemaker.

Malin moved his hands away from her belly and touched two fingers to the pulse point on his other hand, then made a sweeping horizontal movement with his arms, his fingers fluttering open. 

She knew he'd signed doctor, his name for her, but wasn't sure what the other sign meant. Maybe leaving. She took the small notebook Malin carried with him out of his pocket and wrote, 'When am I leaving?'

He read it and nodded, looking sad. 

“Today. The baby will be born in a few days, and I'll be away for three months.”

He looked puzzled and she changed the screen on the computer to show a calender. She pointed to today's date, and then ran her finger across the next three months of numbers. 

“That many days, Malin.”

He looked at the calender and pointed to himself, and then tapped an imaginary watch on his wrist and finger spelled SGC.

Ah, how long had he been here at the SGC.

She pointed to a date on the computer calender, the whole year for 2014. 

“That's the date you came through the Stargate. Astria Porta,” she said. She moved her hand. “Here's today's date.” She showed him the months he'd been here. “Almost six months, honey.”

He imitated her movement, but his fingers moved very slowly, touching each date. 

This was something he asked about a lot, but his comprehension of the time that had passed, as was the case in anything mathematical, was almost non-existent. Tomorrow, if she asked him how many months or days he'd been at the SGC, he wouldn't be able to tell her. 

She wanted to do another EEG on him before she left. She'd done one once a week since he'd arrived, both while he would be sleeping and when he was awake. The unusual pattern of brain activity had continued. Neurology specialists were extremely intrigued, and the fact that Malin was mute and unable to comprehend mathematical concepts fascinated the medical community, herself included.

“Let's do the EEG now, Malin. Becca will set it up for you.” 

He sighed heavily, with a resigned air. It was the only sound he really was able to make. He'd learned to not fuss about the EEG, at least. She reached into her desk and handed him her Ipod, his standard distraction while he was being hooked up. 

He turned it on and showed it to her. 

“Country?” 

He shook his head no. He turned down rock and roll, folk, the blues, and celtic. She was running out of new genres for him to explore.

Well, she doubted he would like it, but she said, “I've got classical music. Want to listen to it? You haven't heard any yet on my Ipod.”

He nodded and she looked for something lighthearted. Something for kids. The music for Peter and the Wolf might work. 

She gave him earbuds, stuck the Ipod in his pocket, along with his ever present notebook, and walked him over to a gurney, motioning to Becca to join them.

“Be good for Becca, Malin,“ she said. He rolled his eyes, and she tousled his hair. “I know. I say that to you a lot. It doesn't change the fact that it's something you need to do, young man.”

He made a back and forth movement with his hand, a whatever gesture that he'd picked up from someone, maybe Vala, but when she made him look into her eyes, he nodded.

Yes, he signed. Behave, me. 

“Thank you,” she said, solemnly, hiding the smile that wanted to escape. She was going to miss him, but she'd already cleared it with her father that she could videocall Malin to check up on him. 

He hugged her and laid a hand on her belly again for a moment. Then he climbed up onto the gurney and sat cross-legged. He put the earbuds in and pressed play on the Ipod, and Becca started attaching leads to his scalp.

Carolyn returned to her desk and started composing her official recommendations for Malin. They would include continuing his current schedule of academic classes and ASL; regular medical checkups including the last of the catch-up doses of immunizations; ongoing medical testing related to his Ancient abilities. She was going to strongly recommend, once again, that Master Sergeant Siler's request to adopt Malin be granted and formalized through the court, Malin assigned an Earth background history and that he start interacting with other children at Peterson Airforce Base's school and daycare center. 

She expected her father to block that last recommendation, although he had authorized Siler's wife, Mary, to be given enough security clearance so that she could visit Malin. 

Malin liked Mary Siler, luckily, and she and Siler spent several evenings a week with him, taking him to the mess or to the gym to play or to the swimming pool on base. He was turning into a little fish.

Malin wasn't the most social child she'd ever seen. He liked the people he connected with, which were a fairly small number, and ignored the rest of the Airmen, Marines and civilians who had some sort of contact with him. 

He didn't seek out adult attention, well, except for Siler's. She suspected he was going to be more of an introvert as he grew up, and not particularly motivated by outside forces, but rather by what he considered to be important. He probably would be one of those persons who marched to the beat of different drummer. 

He didn't like her father at all, and pretended to not understand what her father said to him, on the rare occasions the general came by to observe Malin. 

General Hank Landry was nobody's fool, though, and he knew Malin was trying to snow him. Malin acting that way wasn't helping his case. Her father thought it possible that Malin was some kind of Trojan horse sent to sabotage the SGC, despite every indication that he was only a child. 

It also hadn't helped that on the first and only occasion Malin was allowed topside, he'd ignored his instructions and had taken off running. In her opinion, his behavior had been harmless, he'd just been gleeful about being outside finally, but he'd startled his guards into pointing their zats at him and yelling at him to stop.

They'd scared Malin and he'd reacted by protecting himself. 

Malin had closed the zats down by using his telekinesis.

Her father had deemed Malin still a security risk after that little episode and restricted him back to only certain areas of the SGC.

Malin had gotten a talking to about what he had done from her and from Daniel Jackson and Sergeant Siler, plus he was grounded from his Legos and Rubick's cube for three days. The pouting had been epic. 

Malin had to learn he couldn't use his telekinesis like that, that there were rules he had to follow. He was only allowed to do it in the labs, where she and Bill Lee would test his ability, looking for something that would inhibit that ability, at least until he was old enough to control himself about it.

It was pretty instinctive for Malin to use it if he was scared or determined enough to do something. Until he truly understood why he had to hide his ability, she doubted her father would clear him to leave the base.

She'd consulted with the Psych department about Malin. His continuing nightmares concerned her, but he never was able to articulate what his bad dreams were about, other than to sometimes say, monsters. 

He drew pictures of them, when asked. They were always blue figures that were clothed in black. Their arms and legs were stick thin, their heads large. Sometimes, Malin would scribble over them heavily with a black crayon, other times he would tear up the pictures into tiny pieces. He couldn't or wouldn't tell anyone what the monsters did, or why he was so scared of them. 

Nightmares, the psychologists said, were not uncommon for children his age. He'd outgrow them, probably, as he settled into a routine and felt safe and secure. 

He'd had a few counseling sessions. Malin hadn't taken to any of his therapists, had scorned playing with the doll figures or puppets that his counselors had attempted to use with him to gain insight into his problems. He would draw pictures, but for the most part they consisted of him and Sergeant Siler working together, or Mary Siler teaching him to swim or him holding hands between them.

Once he'd drawn the general with a frowny face yelling “No.' He'd exaggerated her father's bushy eyebrows, and she was hard pressed not to laugh at the sight. 

He drew her with her short, dark hair, in her white lab coat and scrubs. Sometimes he drew her holding a huge hypodermic needle with a big smile on her face; other times he drew her and him holding hands. They both would be smiling in those pictures, and Malin would be using her Ipod. He drew SG1 with smiles on their faces, and himself holding a basketball or soccer ball. Cam Mitchell had decided it was up to his team to teach Malin about sports. They tended to swoop into his classroom and effectively waltz out the door with him to the gym, when they'd returned from a mission. After the Silers and herself, she thought that Teal'c, Daniel, Vala, and Cam were probably Malin's favorite people. 

The therapists decided that counseling wasn't effective for him, and worked instead with the Siler's, preparing them for adopting a non-terrestrial child. There were no medication issues; Malin wasn't depressed and he wasn't hyperactive. 

She recommended that on-going consultations with the Psych department continue, but not direct services to Malin. At least, not at this time. She was concerned that as he grew older, so would his understanding that his situation was far from normal, and that he might become depressed.

Hopefully, the objections to his being formally adopted would be dropped before that happened and he would begin his life as an American boy.

The baby started moving, and she arched her back, trying to make herself more comfortable. Her son hadn't dropped yet, but he was pointed in the right direction. She felt her belly bulging out and caressed where her own little boy was kicking his foot against her. 

She'd considered adopting Malin. John, though, hadn't been that enthusiastic about the idea, since they were about to have their own baby, but he'd come by after his team had returned from a gate mission and observed Malin. She had introduced him as her husband and then left Malin's room. She wanted to find out how Malin would do with just John there with him. Well, John, and the guards. 

Malin had shown him what he was building with Legos. He hadn't let John help him with his ongoing project, though, which was taking shape to be some sort of boat or aircraft. Instead, he put it on his toy shelf and he and John had built a house. He'd written down the answers to the questions John had asked in his little notebook, simple things like what did Malin like to eat – cornbread, mashed potatoes, peas, cake – and what he didn't like – jello, hot dogs, ice cream, any sort of meat – and what were his favorite books. He gotten the books he liked out for John and dropped them in his lap. John had read a few to him, kid's books on dinosaurs, volcanoes, and other science topics. 

“I don't know, Carolyn,” John had told her afterwards. “Maybe we could adopt him, since you're so fond of him. But you know, Sergeant Siler came into his room while I was there and I really think Malin would like to be part of Siler's family. The look on his face when Siler picked him up – he loves that man. If he wants Malin, maybe we could be more like his aunt and uncle. I did like him, he's an interesting kid. I think I could be a good dad to him, but Siler's already got experience under his belt. Did you know he's got four boys and a girl? And I get the impression that your Malin wouldn't be an easy kid to raise, even if he'd been born here on Earth.”

Shortly after that, Sergeant Siler had talked to her about adopting Malin, and she agreed that would be the best option for Malin. She worked on her father until he agreed to let Siler's wife have clearance to meet with Malin.

She finished her report, and sent it to her father and the IOA, cc'ed copies to SG1 and Sergeant Siler. 

She was working on finishing up a report on SG3's condition after their last mission, when Becca came to the doorway.

“Dr. Lam? I think you'd better see this.” Becca looked concerned, her dark blue eyes worried.

Carolyn pushed up from her chair with an effort and walked slowly over to her nurse. Becca was a kind soul, smart, and Malin tended to do better with her than with most of the other medical staff.

“He's crying, Dr. Lam. He was listening to the music and all of a sudden the tears just started pouring. I asked him what was wrong, but he's not responding to me. And his EEG is all over the place.”

Malin was still sitting cross-legged on the gurney but he'd dropped his head down and his hands were covering his face. His shoulders were shaking with the force of his sobbing, and his breath was hitching. 

She wanted to comfort him, pull his hands away and tuck his face into her neck, and rub his back. But she didn't. And maybe this was why it was better that Siler and his wife adopt Malin, because her first instinct, which she was following, was to look at his EEG.

What she was seeing was incredible. The Alpha and Theta readings – which were wildly vacillating -- indicated that something radically different was happening within the temporal lobes. She watched the EEG as Malin continued to sob as if his heart had been broken.

Music. Malin was listening to music and the brain utilized both the right and left hemisphere, for rhythm and pitch and understanding the difference between a single note and a melody. Broca's area analyzed harmonic sequences, Wernicke's area handled temporal analysis. His entire brain was being stimulated through music.

Overall, his left hemisphere was dominant right now, while Malin was listening to whatever had provoked such an emotional reaction. That indicated past experience in musical training.

Which Malin hadn't had. He had no formal musical skills. 

“Dr. Lam?” Becca asked.

“Call Sergeant Siler to the Infirmary, Becca.” Malin needed comfort, but she needed to keep gathering as much data as possible.

If she was right, then this might indicate a breakthrough with Malin's memory. 

She stopped reading the EEG long enough to pick up the Ipod on the gurney.

The song Malin was listening to was Vissi d'arte from the opera Tosca. Performed by Albert Stern. A wonderful violin piece. 

The song ended. Malin dropped his hands and took the Ipod from her.

His eyes were desolate.

He pressed play again, and let the Ipod fall to his lap. He curled up on the gurney, away from her, and covered his face, still sobbing.

He'd remembered something, or the emotion associated with that song at the very least. 

She put a hand on his back but kept her own eyes on the EEG.

Malin was heartbroken because of an Earth song. One she was certain he'd never heard since arriving through the stargate.

They needed to re-evaluate everything they'd learned about him.

 

* * *

Becca also paged Dr. Jackson for her, as Malin wept and listened to the music. 

Before Sergeant Siler and Dr. Jackson arrived, Malin had re-listened to the song three more times.

Sergeant Siler strode through the door, Daniel behind him, and reached Malin's gurney.

“What's going on, Dr. Lam?” Siler asked, his voice firm.

She quickly explained Malin's reaction to the music while Malin stayed curled up, crying still. 

“This is stopping right now,” Siler said. 

“We're learning so much about his brain, though,” Carolyn said. “I know he's in discomfort right now, but ultimately this knowledge could help us understand what's going on with him. I think that's worth letting him continue to listen to the song.” She indicated the EEG readings. “This is groundbreaking research about the brain.”

Daniel shoved his hands in his pockets, his eyes on Malin, but he didn't say anything. 

“I'm his father, and I say he's had enough.” Siler took the Ipod away from Malin and handed it to Becca, then picked up the boy. Malin wound his arms around Siler's neck and kept sobbing.

“So he's like a son to you, Sergeant Siler?” Daniel asked, his eyes sharp on the two of them, man and child.

Siler was a quiet man, loyal, trusted by her father and before him, General Jack O'Neill. He was well thought of by the command staff and by the airmen he worked with and supervised. To her knowledge, he had never refused an order or argued against one. 

“No, Doctor Jackson. He's not 'like' a son to me. He is my son. I don't care that the paperwork hasn't gone through yet. He belongs to Mary and me now.”

Daniel smiled warmly. “I'm so glad to hear you say that, Sergeant. And I'll do anything I can to help make that paperwork happen.” 

She could pull rank as Chief Medical Officer and insist that Malin listen to the song play again.

She wouldn't. There was a time for science and there was a time for being human. If it had been her son in such distress, would she have insisted on continuing the experiment? 

She hoped not. 

“All right.” Carolyn said. “You're the parent, and you called it. Let's get the leads off him. Sergeant, if you could sit on the gurney and hold him, we'll get to work. Daniel, I think we need to discuss the implications of Malin's reaction to an _Earth_ song that he's never listened to before.”

She gave Daniel an intent look. “At least, not that he's heard since he came through the gate.” 

Daniel looked anything but surprised by her remarks. “You're thinking that instead of being an Ancient-human hybrid child, he's an Earth human that ascended and then took human form again.”

“Why else would he know that song?” She turned off the EEG machine.

“I've thought of ascension. I thought of it right away, when I met Malin, but it just doesn't fit.” Daniel started to pace a little. 

Becca was taking the leads off Malin's scalp and she began helping her. Malin was still crying, but was slowing down now. Siler was talking to him, telling him he was okay now, Malin's face turned into his chest.

“Let's review what we know about ascension. We know that at least the Ancients can take form as a child when they descend. Orlin did,” Carolyn said.

More of leads were freed now. 

“But why would an Ancient descend unless he wanted to help us in some way? And Malin hasn't attempted to do that. He can't even talk,” Daniel said. 

“But Ancient was the only language he recognized. And I know you checked on a lot of Earth languages. Maybe he's an Ancient who's being punished? One who likes human music?” Carolyn asked.

“That doesn't really fit in with what I know of the Ancients. A human activity like music? I don't think it would be something they'd pay any attention to. I could be wrong about that, but I don't really think so. Maybe it's some sort of intuition leftover from when I was ascended. And when Oma was being punished it was in a much more clever way, and it was as an ascended being on a higher plane. Also, if Malin's being punished, why let him keep the telekinesis and the healing ability?” Daniel asked, stopping his pacing and turning to look at her.

“Could he be an Earth human who ascended?” Carolyn asked.

“And who then got kicked out of the ascension club? I don't think so, Carolyn. Ancients wouldn't let him keep any abilities he gained from being ascended. We know that from how the Ancients dealt with Anubis. If you remember, he was only allowed to use the skills he would have had as a Goa'uld,” Daniel resumed pacing again.

“Could Malin have had telekinesis and healing abilities as a human?” she asked. She and Becca had only a few leads left now to disengage.

“I suppose it's possible.” Daniel said, looking at Siler and Malin. Malin's sobbing had almost stopped, every so often his breath would hitch. But the tears were still leaking from his closed eyes. “But was he a child or an adult before ascension? And did he come back on his own, or was he sent back?”

“I can see if there's any records we have of humans who have his abilities. Daniel, you at least returned to your own physical form; if Malin was ascended, maybe he did, too. Also, if we're thinking he once was an Earth human, maybe we should check missing persons files, both adults and children, and get his fingerprints. But not tonight. It can wait until tomorrow,” Carolyn said. “At least we can roughly identify his time as a human, if he really was a human who then ascended. It had to be after that song was written and performed.”

“What was that song?”Daniel asked.

Carolyn told him.

Daniel dropped his head in a gesture of futility. “Well, classical music doesn't seem like the sort that a kid would get so emotional about.”

Daniel lifted his head and pushed his glasses back up on his face. He said, “Orlin lost his memories when he became a child. But he did have them for a time, helping us to fight against the Ori. At the risk of repeating myself, there's been no indication that Malin has tried to communicate anything to us.”

“Maybe if he was human and ascended, he didn't have anything to tell?” Carolyn asked.

“But why, why, did he choose to come here! To the SGC, through the stargate!” Daniel said, the passion that he was so famous for breaking through. “Or why did some powerful being – because let's not forget that the iris opened, despite all our attempts to keep it shut – send Malin here?”

“I don't know. At this point, Malin is more of a mystery than when he arrived.” All the leads were out now, and Malin's hair was a mess, the glue used for the leads making his hair stiff in places.

Sergeant Siler stood up with Malin, who wrapped his legs around Siler's waist. His eyes were shut, but the tears were still leaking from his eyes. 

Siler said, “It doesn't matter to me who he was or is, he's my boy now, and he's exhausted. I'm going to take him to his room, give him a bath and put him to bed. I know both of you probably have questions for him, but it can wait until tomorrow.”

“Stop,” Carolyn said. 

Daniel looked at her in surprise. “Carolyn, he's right.”

“I know,” she answered, her voice calm. “Here.” She grabbed a tissue from a cabinet top and put it to Malin's nose. 

“Blow, Malin. You'll feel better.”

He did, and she handed Siler the box. 

“I won't be here tomorrow, but Daniel, Sergeant, I'll write up the implications of this last EEG and send it to you. I”m going to have to amend my report to the general and the IOA, too. I'm also appointing Sergeant Siler as Malin's substitute guardian ad litem while I'm out on leave.” With this new development, she wanted an official advocate here on the base. 

“I'll talk with Malin tomorrow,” Daniel said. “Sergeant, you should be there, too.”

“You bet, Doctor Jackson. And thank you, Doctor Lam. I'm sorry if I sounded out of line,” Siler said.

“You weren't,” Carolyn said. She smoothed down Malin's messy hair. “Goodbye, Malin. Please don't cry anymore. Everything's going to be okay.”

But of course, she had no idea if that would be true.

* * * 

Malin was very quiet, eyes half lidded, while Sly got him into his pj's. The boy was so tired from his crying spell in the Infirmary. And to think it was music that had triggered it. Maybe Doctor Jackson could get to the bottom of that. But not tonight. Malin needed to rest. 

Telling Doctor Lam to stop the EEG was the first time he'd really stepped up as a parent for Malin. 

He thought maybe it was time to ask for a favor from an old friend. General O'Neill despised people who thought they could get him to dance to their tune, but he had a soft spot for kids. If Sly explained about how Malin needed him and Mary to adopt him, maybe Jack would nudge General Landry into finally letting it happen. 

Malin sighed and Sly bent down and kissed him on the forehead, and pulled the covers down. 

His boy had only signed “Sad, me,” when Sly had asked him if he was okay when he'd gotten him out of the bathtub. Usually Malin preferred showers and didn't want anybody helping him. Letting Sly undress him and put him in the tub wasn't typical; he was never this passive. He didn't want a story read to him, but he pointed to his Rubick's cube and held it in his hand when he slid into bed. 

Mary had made him a quilt with pictures of the things he liked. Legos, the Rubick's cube, a dinosaur, a hammer and a tape measure, and some of the wild animals he liked to read about. In the middle was a space ship, with his name embroidered across it. 

One of the blocks had the numbers from 1 to 9 in fabric paint. Sly wasn't sure why Malin was so fascinated with numbers, since he had such a hard time understanding them. By the end of a lesson, he would be able to put three counters on the number three, or add two plus two, again with counters, and tell his teacher that the sum was four. 

By the next day, he would have forgotten all of that. It was like anything he learned about math would be erased while he slept. 

“Go to sleep, honey. Mary will come and stay with you tomorrow,” Sly said. Tomorrow was Saturday and Mary's office was closed. After he told her about Malin being so upset, he knew she'd want to keep a close eye on him for the day. Benny wasn't going to be home; he was on a three-day fishing trip with his best friend's family, who had a cabin up in the mountains. 

Malin grabbed his hand, and Sly sat down on the edge of the bed. 

“I'll stay till you're asleep. Close your eyes now. I'll be back in the morning and we'll go get pancakes at the mess.” Malin loved pancakes. 

Malin dimmed the lights and closed his eyes. At least he no longer had to have guards on the inside of his room. There were still two stationed on the outside of the room, and the medical staff monitored Malin during the night with the ever-present security camera. He'd let the night shift know that if Malin became upset again in the night to call him. 

Malin opened his eyes and signed, using both hands, “song.” This was a night-time ritual they had, on those evenings that Sly was free to stop by Malin's room at bedtime.

“Will it make you feel sad again?” The last thing he wanted was for him to get so upset again.

Malin shook his head, and signed 'song' again.

“Okay. But if you get upset, we'll do it another day.” Sly hummed the tune for a stanza and then sang softly, “Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me. I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to...”

He sang, Malin's breathing slowing, the tight hold he had on Sly's hand loosening. 

“Take me on a trip upon your magic, swirlin' ship...” He trailed off, and Malin stayed asleep.

He laid a gentle hand on the boy's head, smoothing down the flyaway hair, and quietly left the room.

* * *

Sly reached blindly for the ringing phone and knocked it off the bedside table. The clatter woke up Mary and she pushed herself up on an elbow.

“What?” Turning to look at the lit numbers on the alarm clock, she said, worry in her voice, “It's almost five thirty.” They hadn't gone to bed till midnight, discussing Malin's breakdown earlier in the infirmary.

Sly hung half off the bed and grabbed the phone up from where it had skidded under the bed. “Yes,” he said, sitting up. “This is Siler.”

Mary turned the lamp on while he listened to the caller. “We're coming in,” he said into the receiver, looking at her.

“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Is it one of the kids?”

He nodded, and she reached for his hand. 

Seeing the fear on her face, he felt again how, despite all of his close calls during his time in the service, and especially with the SGC, it was being a parent that had really taught him what terror truly was. 

She stayed silent until he hung up the phone. Her eyes were huge, but she was the wife of a soldier and a mother; she'd learned long ago to hold tight to the edge of fear and wait, wait for the words that would tell just how bad things were this time. 

“Sly? Which one?” She was so brave, his Mary. Her voice was steady, and her hand felt like a lifeline to him.

“It's Malin. They found him unconscious on the floor in his room. He's still unresponsive. They think he's had some kind of brain injury.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Siler sings a Bob Dylan song to Malin.


	5. A Delegation From Atlantis

**Atlantis**

 

“What the hell, Rodney!” John boosted himself up on the lab table and kicked Rodney's chair, making it spin a little so that Rodney had to look away from the computer monitor. 

“You're here. Good. I need a ride to the Mountain. Of course, it's not like I can really spare the time, but Bill Lee is begging me to come.” Rodney turned back to his computer.

John waved his cell phone at Rodney. “I was sleeping. As in, sleeping. Dreaming. You know, that thing normal people do when they're tired?” The sun was just coming up, light streaming through the stained glass windows. 

“Sorry?” He wasn't sorry, and John knew it. 

“Can't the Lindbergh beam you over?”

“Um, no. They've left orbit.” Rodney looked up at John and frowned. “You look terrible.”

John said, in the patient tone of voice he used in lieu of rolling his eyes, “Because I'm tired. Which is why I was _sleeping_. So, how urgent is it that you get to the SGC? Lorne or somebody else with the gene could take you, if you need to go right now.” 

“Not that urgent. Bill Lee wants the ascendometer, but the kid is in a coma, so I'm not sure the readings would be accurate anyway. And the other stuff isn't going anywhere. Go back to bed. We can zip over this afternoon.” Rodney gave him a half wave and then rubbed his eye with the heel of his right hand. 

John knew his team. He knew when he should offer to go on a run with Ronon and when it was better to leave him alone, staring out at the Pacific from a high observation deck. He knew when Teyla needed to spend time with her husband and sons, and he knew Rodney McKay better than he knew anybody in two galaxies.

He didn't even question why Rodney had assumed John would be his taxi driver. But Rodney was tired, too. Jamming the heel of his hand into his eye was a dead giveaway.

“Turn off the computer, Rodney. Go to bed.”

Rodney snorted. “You're not my mother, Sheppard.”

“No. I'm your team leader and the military commander of Atlantis, and if I have to make it an order, I will. Go to bed. There's no emergency at the moment.” He said it with the tone in his voice that he knew Rodney would respond to with compliance. 

Rodney gave a much put upon sigh, but closed his laptop. 

“Good. So what is it Bill Lee wants you to do?” John stifled a yawn.

Rodney reached for what was left of a donut and shoved it in his mouth. He mumbled, mouth full, “You know that kid, SG1's mascot?”

Cam Mitchell and John played golf together sometimes. They talked.

“Malin? The boy who came through the gate and knows Ancient but can't say anything?”

Rodney swallowed, and said, “That's the one. Yesterday he couldn't add two plus two. Sometime in the night that changed, and Bill wants me to look at what they found.”

“Did you say Malin was in a coma?” John dropped his cell phone back into his shirt pocket and hoped for that he'd misunderstood Rodney. 

“Yeah. Lee says Dr. Brightman's not sure if he's going to live or not.”

“What happened?” John said, rubbing a hand over his forehead.

“They're still trying to figure that out.” 

Rodney stood and John slid off the table. He put a hand on Rodney's back, gently shoving him towards the beautifully ornate door.

“Set your alarm for 1400 hours, Rodney. I'll let General Landry know we're coming.”

* * *

 

The flight from the San Francisco Bay to Cheyenne Mountain was uneventful, although Rodney groused about being banned from flying the puddle jumper. Both General Landry and General O'Neill had made it a standing order that Rodney wasn't allowed to pilot any of Atlantis' jumpers unless there was a dire emergency. 

“I still don't see why I can't fly. I did when we were in Pegasus. I shot down asteroids,” Rodney protested as they flew away from Atlantis.

“And it was appreciated. A lot. But you have trouble flying a straight line, Rodney,” John said, using a reasonable tone of voice. “And there was a lot more open airspace when you did fly from Atlantis to the mainland. Even Carson was better than you were.”

“Oh, now you're just being mean. Carson _sucked_ as a shuttle pilot.” Rodney crossed his arms over his chest, looking put out as only Rodney McKay could look. But his heart wasn't really in the argument. John knew the difference. Rodney was just going through the motions, mostly to just register his longstanding protest on being banned.

“Yes; yes, he did suck at handling the puddle jumpers. I'm sure Landry and O'Neill would have banned him, too,” John said soothingly.

“I think I deserve another chance. You could give me some advanced lessons in flying.” Rodney drummed his fingers against his crossed arms

“Rodney, you almost ran into a Southwestern airliner. You caused a Cessna pilot to practically have a heart attack when you de-cloaked next to him, and he lost control of his plane and almost crashed. You landed on top of parked cars at the Mountain and smashed them flat.” John quirked an eyebrow up, managing not to laugh.

“One time about the cars,” Rodney protested. “It was a mistake anybody could make.”

“You flattened General Landry's brand new Ford F-450 truck.” John had pointed out that at least the general hadn't been in it, but Landry hadn't been mollified one little bit.

“Oh. Right. That's the one that he yelled cost...”

“Fifty-five thousand, Rodney.”

“Hmph. So, he's still sore about that?”

“Yes, Rodney. He's still mad about it.”

“So, no chance?”

“About as much as me coming up with the answer to one of the Millennium Prize problems,” John said, grinning evilly at Rodney.

Rodney made a grumbling sound, then said, “Well, if you would apply yourself, who knows? You've got some talent for mathematics. Not on my scale, obviously, but you could get by.” This was not a new observation. Rodney had been trying to get him to consider a Ph.D in Mathematics for years. 

“But not that much interest.” John calculated the time. They'd be at the Mountain in two hours.

“I'm grounded forever, aren't I?” Rodney said, resigned.

“Yes. Yes, you are. But cheer up. This way you get my company. Why don't you tell me about how your minions screwed things up this week?” John had a whole list of topics he used to redirect Rodney when he was on a rant. Getting him to complain about something else wasn't exactly a hardship.

“You're just trying to distract me.” Rodney knew him pretty well, too. 

“Yes, Rodney. Is it working?”

“Well,” Rodney brightened. “I borrowed one of Zelenka's minions, and he tripped and spilled coffee on my laptop, and I almost lost my data. I did enjoy reaming him out. And then, that new one, what's her name, Timmons, Simmons, Thompson? Something like that, well, she totally screwed up and it was only because I'm a genius that I was able to save us from having to start over again on the ZPM problem.”

“Getting bored being in the lab? I can ask Landry for a mission.” John was ready to go off world. He spent part of his time on off world missions, a nice break from his duties on Atlantis. He was due. 

Rodney nodded. “Sure. I'll polish up my zat and P-90 when we get back.”

“Good. Teyla and Ronon are ready to go off world, too.”

Both of his other teammates spent a lot of time helping train SGC personnel in self-defense. Teyla also had some administrative duties.

He thought of his flight plan and it appeared in front of him, hanging in the air. He thought of a course correction and the jumper veered to the left. 

“So,” John drawled, wanting to derail Rodney before he started on another grievance, “Bill Lee thinks Malin might be trying to ascend?”

Rodney shrugged. “Maybe? He told me the kid had some small talent in telekinesis and healing, although he's only healed himself a few times from scrapes. All the EEGs he's had have been abnormal since the day he stumbled through the gate, but the ones from this morning are even more weird.”

“Have you met him?”

“No. He's like, four years old.” Rodney made a face. “He's no doubt sticky and grubby, and I don't do well with kids, you know that. They cry.”

John said, amused, “That's because you aren't nice to them. Just remember little kids aren't your lab assistants and don't yell at them. Although you like Teyla's kids and Madison, don't even tell me you don't.”

“I've practically raised Torren and Hannon, so of course they aren't the same as regular rug rats. And Madison is different. She's smart, and funny.” Rodney reached into a pocket and brought out his wallet. He flipped it open, and showed him Madison in a purple ballerina costume. 

“New pics from Jeannie? Madison's got her Uncle Meredith wrapped around her little pinky.” 

“She does not,” Rodney denied, closing the wallet and putting it back in his pocket.

“Does too.”

“Not!”

“I'll ask her mother the next time she comes by to consult with you or Zelenka. Want to put money down on what Jeannie will say?” John said, nonchalantly. 

“No.”

“All right then,” John said, smirking a little at Rodney. “But back to Malin. I think he's more like... six, from what Mitchell told me. SG1's pretty fond of him. Jackson figured out that he knew Ancient. And he's like me. He's got the ATA gene.”

“All I know is that he's weird enough that Landry won't let him leave the Mountain. And Bill wants me to take a look at what they found in his room before we head back.”

“So what'd they find?” John thought of current weather patterns and another screen obligingly showed him that a storm would probably cross their paths when they flew over Utah. He'd keep an eye on it, see if he needed to change his flight path. 

“Bill wouldn't tell me the details.” Rodney sounded annoyed. 

“He whetted your curiosity, didn't he?”

Rolling his eyes, Rodney said, “Well, that, and he keeps insisting I owe him for that whole swiping a puddle jumper and gating back to Atlantis to rescue O'Neill and Woolsey deal.” 

“You know, we did kind of dump him in hot water, since we used his computer and access code.”

“It's not our fault we were able to target his lack of security. We actually did him a favor, if you think about it,” Rodney said, chin a little up in the air. 

“I'm just saying he's got a point.” John thought Dr. Bill Lee was kind of a screwball, but they _had_ played him. 

“Mmm,” Rodney murmured. “We couldn't have pulled that off without Elizabeth. She was great at keeping his attention. You know, she even had me believing she was a gamer. World of Warcraft. Bill's favorite.”

John nodded, and Rodney fell silent. Bringing up Elizabeth was painful, for both of them. She didn't deserve what had happened to her. 

“Yeah. Elizabeth was pretty great.” 

Rodney glanced at John, and said, quietly, “Yes. She was.” 

The rest of the flight Rodney stared out the window and John kept quiet. Rodney usually talked all the time. He chattered to himself, to his teammates, to other scientists, to his computer and to the wall. 

But sometimes, like now, he needed silence. John was fine with that. He thought about Elizabeth, remembered how they'd lost the original Carson. Ford, too, after his transformation from being exposed to the Wraith enzyme. The men he'd lost in Afghanistan that he'd tried to save. All good people. All gone.

He hope this little boy they were bringing the ascendometer for would make it. 

* * * 

John didn't like infirmaries. Or ERs. Regular hospitals either. Wasn't crazy about the mandatory checkups he was required to have after a mission. Shoot, he hated even getting a flu shot. 

He glanced at the stone-faced Marines who held their weapons ready, their eyes trained on the gurney with a tiny person on it hooked up to an IV.

He felt uncomfortable hanging around the outskirts of the small group of people who were working on Malin. Rodney was briefing Dr. Brightman about the ascendometer, and she was attaching the band to the kid's head. 

He recognized Sergeant Siler, but not the dark-haired woman who was holding his hand, her other hand clasped around the little boy's still fingers. 

She must be Siler's wife. Cam Mitchell had said the couple wanted to adopt Malin. 

He'd listened to the conversation between Dr. Brightman and Rodney before deciding he should move back and give the medical staff some space. Malin hadn't regained consciousness since he'd been found in the early morning hours. His EEG was still whacky. He'd had X-rays and his PET scan was strange, but he wasn't concussed. Whatever was wrong with him was related to his Ancient type gifts, apparently.

Dr. Brightman was still going over the kid's medical records, since she had just transferred from Homeworld Command's medical department to cover for Dr. Lam while she was out on maternity leave.

Daniel Jackson had been there, standing with the Silers when they'd brought the ascendometer into the room. John watched Daniel lay a hand on Sergeant Siler's shoulder, and say something softly to Siler's wife, then cup Malin's face. 

He approached John and gave a tired, half smile to him. “John,” he said, then stood so that he could still see what was happening with Malin.

“Daniel.” 

They stood silently, watching the green rays from the ascendometer flicker over Malin's face. The monitor's numbers came to life, and John remembered the last time he'd seen those kind of readings. They'd almost lost Rodney.

“You've seen this before, haven't you?” Daniel asked quietly, crossing his arms and glancing at John. His expression must have given it away to Daniel.

“Yeah. Rodney, he came this close to ascending.” He held up his thumb and forefinger, leaving only a small space between them. “We found another one of the Ancient's half-assed experiments that they left lying around, and he accidentally triggered it.”

Daniel nodded. “SG1 has had our share of that sort of thing.”

“Like that time everybody but Teal'c and General O'Neill were caught in a time loop? I read the mission report after I was brought on board the program.” Once it was discovered that he had the ATA gene, he was given a stack of mission reports to read, especially anything that had pertained to the Ancients. 

“Yes. Of course, I don't remember it the way Jack and Teal'c do. We had to destroy the machine, finally, to break free.”

Daniel's attention focused on the readings. “This doesn't look good.”

“No, it doesn't,” John said. For ascension to occur, the EEG number had to be down to almost zero. Malin's was at ten. The other number, the one that showed how much brain activity related to the ability to transform from a human body to pure energy, was at sixty-eight.”

They looked at each other. “Ninety-six, right?” John said.

“Yes.” Daniel took off his glasses, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, John wanted to look away. 

“I'm sorry. Mitchell, he, ah... told me about Malin.”

“Cam's on his way. So is Vala. Teal'c's offworld. But maybe things will change for the better.” Daniel sounded bleak.

Rodney was questioning Dr. Brightman. After some discussion between them, he turned away from her side, and said something to Siler and his wife. 

Rodney wasn't often tactful, but from the look on his face, he was making a real effort not to sound like a jerk.

Siler nodded, and Rodney walked away. He motioned for John and Daniel to come with him and they left the infirmary.

“Rodney?” John asked.

Rodney didn't say anything. Daniel looked at John again and John shrugged. So Rodney didn't feel like talking. Seeing Malin like that had gotten to him. Daniel reached out, though, and put his hand on Rodney's shoulder, and Rodney stopped walking.

“What did Brightman say?” Daniel asked, quietly, like Rodney might shatter if he voiced the question roughly or with anger.

Rodney's blue eyes looked a little shiny, but he took a deep breath, then said, “She doesn't know if there's any medical treatment that can help him, other than I.V.s to provide fluids. At this point, she doesn't want to medicate him with any drugs because it might do more harm than good.” 

“Has she talked with Dr. Lam?” Daniel wrapped his arms around himself. 

“No. General Landry's orders, she said. Dr. Lam's about to go into labor and please don't ask me to repeat the details.” Rodney made a face.

“Bill wants me and Rodney to meet him in Malin's room,” Daniel said. “Maybe we can get some kind of idea about what happened before Malin lost consciousness. It's all on video.”

“I'll come along. I'm not meeting with Landry for a couple of hours,” John added.

Daniel let his arms relax and exhaled slowly. Daniel Jackson was a good guy. Hell, Rodney liked him, and not that many people made McKay's A list. As the new guy in the stargate program, years ago, John had heard enough about Dr. Daniel Jackson to realize that guy had been through hell and back again. He'd lost his wife, and other people he'd loved. Died in a horrible way with radiation poisoning. And now it looked like somebody else he cared a lot about was in danger of dying, but he was sucking it up, keeping his shit together.

Daniel gave him a nod, keeping himself on the job. “Okay. I'll take you there. Bill's pretty perplexed.”

Following Daniel onto an elevator, they went down four levels and exited on level twenty-five. Malin's room was at the end of a long corridor.

Daniel said, as they walked along the gray hallway, “Whenever Malin was inside his room, he had Marines guarding the door. General Landry's orders.”

“You didn't like it,” John said carefully.

“No,” Daniel said, a note of anger in his voice. “Not after it was clearly established that Malin is just a child. He's spent six months of his life as a prisoner here, and that's no way for a kid to grow up.”

“What about his talents? You don't think he posed a security risk?” John could see Landry's point. 

“He's stubborn, but there's no malice in him. He should have been allowed to live with the family that wants him months ago. And putting him in time-out has for the most part taught him limits. He might use his telekinesis to help himself to cookies, but he's not going to lock down the base.” Daniel stopped in front of a room. “This is it. I, uh, haven't seen anything yet. I've been with Siler and Mary.”

Daniel opened the door and they followed him inside. 

“What?” Rodney said, making a beeline for the nearest wall.

“Malin did this?” John asked Bill Lee, who was standing in the middle of the room, stroking his scraggly beard and staring at the far wall.

Bill startled and turned around. “This is... Look. I've been working with this kid, and he's never been capable of doing this before.”

Bill waved his hand encompassing the walls that were covered in equations as high up as Malin evidently could reach by standing on a chair and wielding a magic marker. 

Rodney was still staring.

“Rodney?”

“This is amazing. This section here, that's Ancient.” He slowly walked along the wall and then stopped.

“Huh. This is very strange. I've seen something like this before...” He snapped his fingers three times and drove his fist into his other hand.

“The math hall. That girl, the one with all the alien math in her head. She was working on algorithms like this one.” He pointed to a long equation with symbols that looked totally foreign to John. “Math Boy showed me her work.” 

Bill's forehead wrinkled and he pursed his lips. “Math Boy? Are you talking about that kid that's on Destiny? The one that solved the ninth chevron?”

“Well, doesn't all of this writing on the wall remind you of Rush's math corridor on that bucket of bolts?” Rodney asked, his eyes tracing a complicated equation.

Daniel had picked up some coloring sheets on Malin's desk, and waved them. “This isn't the kind of thing Malin usually liked to draw.” 

John walked over and took a look. He pulled them from Daniel's hands and spread them out on top of the desk, pushing the crayons to one side.

“Look.” John pointed to a page of random colored shapes. “This is an example of the Five Color Theorem. See how none of the colors are touching each other? That's not too hard to do, actually. But this one, which Malin copied the lines and shapes from the five color one, that's a Four Color Theorem example. And that's a lot more difficult.” 

Daniel stepped a little closer and then looked down. “What's this?” He picked up a sheet of paper that had numbers and letters scrawled on it. “Okay, this is an formula of some kind. O=(N²) time. O=V.” He turned the page over. It was filled with more equations from the top to the bottom.

John studied them. “They all relate to the Four Color Theorem.”

Walking around the room, John took in the toys on the shelves, the rumpled bed with a Rubick's cube sitting on the pillow. 

He walked over and picked it up. It was solved, with all the colors on each side of the cube the same. There was more paper littered on the floor next to the bed. John picked them up and studied them. 

“Um, guys? Malin wrote out formulas for solving this thing.” He grabbed the cube and tossed it to Rodney.

Rodney missed it, and the cube clattered as it bounced on the floor. “Hey, who cares about a toy! Look at the walls! He's written some of the classic theorems from different mathematical disciplines.” He pointed to the wall on the left of the door. “Look. Set Theory, Algebra, Algebraic Geometry, Model Theory, Group Theory, Combinatorics. And Physics, too. It's almost like he was checking on what he remembered. But this, this isn't something that's already been proven.”

Bill nodded. “That's Quantum Cryptography. But he didn't finish the proof.” 

Rodney waved his hands dismissively. “Maybe he decided it was a waste of time.”

“Rodney,” John said, putting the inflection on Rodney's name that meant, “can it.” He'd heard Rodney's opinion on the future of Quantum Cryptography too many times before, and they certainly didn't need to hear it now.

John could see where the magic marker trailed off into a jagged line.

Noticing where John was looking, Bill said, “Yeah. That's where he passed out. They found him on the floor right there.”

“Cam told me Malin was monitored at night. Something go wrong with the cameras? Cause how did he do all of this stuff without being noticed?” John walked over and picked up the Rubick's Cube and the papers on the floor and placed them on the desk. The papers were covered with Malin's childish handwriting The first notations were the older algorithms for twisting the cube, but the last one showed that only twenty-three moves were needed to win. As far as John knew, that was the definitive formula. 

“Ah. They did notice he was up, but he was playing quietly in his bed with the Rubick's Cube and then he went to his desk and was coloring for a while. Nothing out of the ordinary, especially with the cube. He plays with it constantly.” Daniel sighed. “Then SG11 came in hot, with wounded, and they were busy. When they checked back on Malin, he'd done all this of this,” Daniel waved his hand at the wall, “and he was unconscious.”

John drifted over to the toy shelves, where there were containers of Legos, and a collection of space ships and rockets. There were puzzles, and books, a small army of dinosaurs and a large wooden block set. He picked up a fairly large boat or maybe a spaceship made painstakingly from mostly blue Legos with what was obviously a bridge in red. There were even small shuttles included, and what looked like some kind of engine drive in yellow at the stern.

He picked up the... hmm. He turned it over in his hands, and decided that what Malin had made was definitely a space ship. He ran his fingers over it, over the graceful way the ship fanned out at the stern. 

It was familiar. 

Bill joined him. “Malin made that. He wouldn't let anybody help him.”

Suddenly he knew why this model had called to him. “This is an Ancient ship,” he said. It wasn't an Aurora class starship, though. “Did you guys show him pictures of Ancient ships from Pegasus?”

“No. Landry would have had a cow if we'd showed Malin anything that was classified.” Bill shrugged his shoulders, and pushed his glasses back up on his nose. “He's very interested in space, though. He likes looking at pictures of stars and galaxies. I let him watch videos from Hubble as a reward for cooperating with me.”

“Just what is it you're doing with the kid, anyway?” John put the Ancient ship back on the shelf and walked over to the desk, where a laptop was open. The screen showed Malin sleeping, the image frozen. Sitting down, John pushed the space bar and on the screen Malin rolled onto his side. 

Daniel moved closer, his closed fist against his lips as they watched Malin sigh in his sleep and roll back the other way. 

“Dr. Lam and I were mapping out his healing ability, well, mostly his telekinesis. Dr. Lam wouldn't let me actually cut him or anything.” Bill gave a disgruntled sigh. “I scratched my own hand and asked him to fix me, but he, ah, he signed that it was my own fault and I should go to time-out. He wouldn't try it.”

“I've got kids, you know.” Bill continued, joining him and Daniel. On the screen Malin sat up abruptly, a horrified look on his face. A few tears made their way down his face, but he wiped them off, and picked up the Rubick's Cube. Bill said, “My kids are smart, don't get me wrong. So I'm used to intelligent kids. But Malin, despite his inability to retain math concepts, is pretty darn clever. Especially with problem solving.”

Rodney looked away from the wall of numbers and symbols and snorted. “I'd say he's not going to have any more problems with mathematics.”

“If he lives,” Daniel said, to himself.

“Hey,” John said. “None of that quitter talk. Brightman's a good doc, from what I hear. And he's a tough kid, right?”

Bill nodded. “He is. And he doesn't complain about things much. Well, he didn't like getting his shots. He doesn't get to play with other kids, so I don't know if he can hold his own with them, but he's not intimidated by adults. He's got this way of looking at you like you're an absolute idiot.”

Daniel said, “He does at that, although to be fair, the recipients mostly deserve those looks.” Daniel glanced at Bill and for a moment an amused look crossed his face.

“All right, so I got a few wires crossed and shorted out the equipment,” Bill said, rolling his eyes.

“Didn't he sign to you that you were doing it wrong, and then diagrammed out the correct solution?” Daniel asked, like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. “And you told him he didn't know what he was talking about?”

“Yeah, okay. I apologized, all right.” Bill looked chagrined. 

On the screen, Malin had put down the Rubick's Cube, partly completed, and pressed his closed fists to his temples. It looked to John like the kid had a headache. He kept his hands like that for about a minute and then resumed working on the cube.

They watched him quickly finish the cube so that each side was the same color. “Hey, he used a version of the layer method and I'm pretty sure I only counted fifty-five moves,” John said, impressed.

Daniel eyed him and John shrugged. “What? I used to win beers doing this stuff.”

On the other side of the room, Rodney snorted. 

They watched as Malin twisted the cube until it was back to a jumble of colors. and then in under a minute he solved it. He did it again and again, improving his time and amount of moves needed. Then he got out of bed and got paper and a pencil and made notations on it, and brought it back to the bed. 

He climbed back under the covers, and held the cube in his hand, his eyes tightly shut, his breathing fast. 

Malin stayed that way for some time, but it was obvious that he wasn't going back to sleep. He seemed in pain, the way he used his free hand to rub at his forehead, biting his lip, narrowing his eyes.

“Malin's been here for six months?” John asked, fingers trailing along a high shelf over the desk and stopping at a binder labeled “Dreams.”

“That's right,” Bill answered. He took his glasses off and started cleaning them on the tail end of his shirt.

“So, why did this cascade of math stuff start up last night? Did something happen?” He lifted the binder down and started flipping through the childish artwork. 

“Yes,” Daniel said. “He was listening to music while his EEG was being recorded and one song really upset him. He listened to it a couple of times and Dr. Lam told us that what she was seeing on his EEG had groundbreaking implications for brain research.”

Bill put his glasses back on and rubbed the back of his head. “So, you're suggesting that the music was a trigger for his memories?”

Rodney joined them. “Memories?” He snapped his fingers twice. “Of course. He was an ascended being and came back as a child.”

Daniel nodded. “That's what we were discussing last night, that he must have been from Earth originally and now, with all of this,” he swept an arm out, encompassing the room, “it makes even more sense. But who was he? And why is he here?”

“He doesn't know, I guess?” John hazarded. 

“No. He doesn't know about the Ancients; he doesn't remember anything before he showed up in the gateroom.” Daniel sighed. “But he understands Ancient, and he does have abilities only seen in advanced humans, like the Ancients.”

“Like the healing.” John stopped on a picture of a blue sort of person. Well, it had arms and legs but its face wasn't human. Malin had drawn small tentacles on it. He continued, “You know, I stayed with some folks who had those abilities. Pretty sure they were the descendents of Ancients. One of their kids healed me. Just held onto my arm. Kind of tuckered her out, though.”

“Yes, I remember reading about that. And I believe they were Ancients, not humans. They all ascended. So maybe Malin had his abilities before he ascended, because according to the rules,” Daniel made air quotes, “an ascended being who retakes human form can't use any powers gained from ascending.”

John nodded. Everybody with Stargate Command had heard about Jackson ascending. Twice. Apparently, he wasn't so hot at following the rules, since he'd come back. 

Rodney glanced at the picture of the blue monster and snatched the binder out of John's hands. 

“Hey. Have we forgotten our manners, Rodney?” John said sarcastically. 

“Shut up. Jackson, why did the kid draw this?” Rodney had the expression that meant he was about to figure something out.

Daniel shrugged. “He has a lot of nightmares, but mostly doesn't remember them. This is an exception, and he draws these figures a lot. He can't tell us why, but he says they're monsters.”

“Close,” Rodney said. “Bill, you and I used the stones to get on board Destiny. Did Math Boy tell you about the aliens who took Rush and that girl, the Senator's daughter? They were blue-skinned, bi-pedal, and had catfish faces. Like what the kid drew. Faces with small tentacles.”

“Yeah,” Bill said. “I never thought about it, but Eli's description does resemble Malin's drawing.”

“The Nakai?” John asked. “Hey, did either of you get a chance to see what Destiny looks like from space? Because the kid made that model and I know an Ancient design when I see one.”

Daniel walked over to the toy shelf and brought the ship made of Legos back. Rodney stared at it, and then nodded. 

“I saw some footage that showed Destiny as the shuttle pulled away.” He pointed to the model. “This is Destiny. Whoever Malin was, he probably was on that ship and he had the ATA gene.” Rodney glanced again at the walls covered with mathematics. 

Daniel met John's eyes. “I think I know who he was.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Daniel said, “We were going to fingerprint Malin and see if there was an Earth match. We'll know in a matter of minutes once we access SGC records.”

Rodney looked at Daniel. “Rush?”

Daniel nodded. “Rush.”

On the monitor Malin climbed out of bed and went to his desk, pulling out crayons and paper from a drawer.

Bill said, “Nobody's heard anything from Destiny for years. The entire crew, including Rush, went into stasis pods while the ship traveled through a void before entering a new galaxy.”

“When were they supposed to make contact?” John didn't think he'd ever met Rush, but he'd heard about how the scientist had dialed the ninth chevron when the Icarus base was being destroyed. Supposedly he was responsible for stranding all those people on a falling apart Ancient ship so far away that there was no chance of one of their ships ever catching up to it. Rumor had it that the man was reviled by some in the SGC, because they believed he'd done that only to prove his theories – he should have dialed a gate in the Milky Way. But Rush had also found that “message” in the cosmic background radiation that he claimed was really Destiny's mission, and some people considered that a message from God. They thought Rush was like some kind of prophet; others thought he was a fraud.

John had never heard anything about Rush having any sort of Ancient powers, though. So Malin having them didn't make a whole lot of sense, unless he had gotten them from being ascended. Maybe Malin's illness was how the Ancients were punishing him for not following the rules.

“Ah, let me see,” Bill stroked his short beard with his fingers. “I'm not positive, but I think Destiny's crew is due to check in with Homeworld Command in about a month. Or, they were due.”

John said slowly, “If Rush is here, and not like, from another reality or cloned, or whatever, then what happened to him on Destiny?”

Daniel looked somber. “What happened to all of them?”

 

* * *


	6. General Telford Takes an Interest

**Homeworld Command. Pentagon.**

 

David finished the last report on recent Lucian Alliance movements, and scrolled down to the next document that had been flagged for his perusal.

He frowned as he started to take in what Landry had reported to Homeworld Command. As he was the liaison between Destiny and Earth, any relevant information was routed to him as well as General O'Neill. He broke off reading and sipped at his large mug of coffee.

O'Neill could have relied upon him to screen the data, forwarding for the general's notice only the most necessary reports.

Jack O'Neill insisted on having a personal finger in this particular pie, though. 

David smiled to himself. He and Jack had been playing a game of politics for years now. And so far, they'd struck a balance. David had his backers, whom he could thank for the new star on his uniform. Brigadier General Telford had a nice ring to it. Jack had been promoted as well, he was a four star general now, and he was a lot more cagy than his irreverent manner suggested. Well, suggested to people who hadn't seen him dealing with the numerous problems associated with being in charge of Homeworld Command.

O'Neill had done a good job, he didn't deny that. He himself wasn't interested in taking over for him. Not at this point. No. He wanted to be at the helm of Destiny for as long as the ship was viable. Thanks to the crew scavenging parts from the alternate time line Destiny, if the ship survived the trip through the void then the mission could continue. He would be there as much as he could by using the stones, until he could step through the gate and relieve Everett. 

Jack didn't trust him when it came to anything connected to the Icarus Project, including Destiny herself. Possibly that was because of the brainwashing he'd experienced during his time undercover with the Lucian Alliance. Maybe it was because David had tipped his hand years ago to O'Neill about the obsession he felt about that mission.

It was an obsession. David could admit it. Hell, he embraced it. The Lucian Alliance hadn't created his desire to lead the team to explore the ninth chevron. Command of Destiny should have been his. It was a cluster fuck of Alliance politics that had robbed him of his rightful position as the expedition leader, and he knew it was his own personal destiny to regain that place. 

Within a year, the ZPM project should actually produce enough ZPMs so that the ninth chevron could be dialed. 

Since the Ancients had launched Destiny the only two successful attempts to dial the ship had resulted in the destruction of both planets in a spectacular explosion. The IOA and O'Neill both agreed that searching out another Icarus type planet was not the way to go. The Langarans had never agreed to let him use their planet and gate. McKay was still miffed that the scientists on that planet hadn't trusted his claim that his math showed it was very much workable without losing the planet. 

He dropped his eyes back to his monitor, curious about what had brought Destiny to Landry's attention. He doubted it was anything to do with the alleged message in the cosmic background radiation. That sort of thing tended to be kicked around by the politicians and scientists, not an old war-horse like Landry.

He skimmed the report on the child who'd come through the gate half a year ago. It wasn't until the name Nicholas Rush jumped out at him that he slowed down and re-read the preceding passage carefully.

_The child came through the stargate at the SGC... (see Dr. Lam's appended report.)... High level of security has been maintained(see appended recommendations following the incident with Khalek, Anubis' clone) due to the Ancient type talents he has demonstrated, notably, self-healing and telekinesis. The child, claiming amnesia and temporarily named Malin Tripp, became unconscious following what appears to have been returning memories. (see Drs. Lam and Brightman's appended report)._

_Drs. Lee, Jackson, McKay, and Colonel Sheppard suggested, based on observation of the child's room and video footage of his actions, that fingerprint and DNA identification rule out Dr. Nicholas Rush as being a match for Malin Tripp._

_Testing confirmed, rather than ruled out, that Malin Tripp, approximately aged five to seven years, is a genetic match to Dr. Nicholas Rush..._

He quickly sped through the rest of the report, and thumbed the intercom on his phone.

“Sergeant Miller. Get me General Carter on the Hammond.”

 

* * *

 

He quickly dealt with anything requiring his immediate attention while he waited for the General Hammond to make orbit. He'd called Landry and learned that there was a briefing scheduled that afternoon regarding Malin Tripp/Nicholas Rush. 

He told Landry he'd be there. He wanted to see for himself this kid, this reincarnation of Nick. 

Nick.

They'd slipped into cautious animosity on Icarus and Destiny, although sometimes when he'd seen Nick's dark eyes it had been enough to make his blood boil again. 

Obstructionist little bastard. 

Fucking clever little bastard.

Devious, volatile, disdainful, _pragmatic_ little bastard. 

He'd saved David's life, but the cost had almost been too high.

He supposed he could say that Nick had saved his life twice, since it was directly due to his actions that David's brainwashing had been revealed. Cured by Everett, of all people, and sometimes he still had nightmares about gasping like a fish out of water in Rush's body, as the air in the room was vented on Everett's ruthless command.

Yes. Everett could be ruthless. But he'd broken the brainwashing Kiva had forced on David, making him her obedient attack dog. He owed him. And he owed him an apology because of Emily. 

The best way to repay his old friend would be to get rid of the troublemaker who'd made commanding Destiny ten times harder.

He didn't owe Rush, if he was even still on the ship, a damn thing. 

* * *

He was beamed directly into the conference room above the gate room, General Carter standing by his side. 

He looked around, taking in the long, beautiful wooden table where some familiar faces were now looking his way. 

“Sam.” Daniel Jackson pushed up from his chair and gave Carter a hug. “Thanks for coming.” 

“Daniel.” She patted him on the arm, and saluted Landry. “Sir.”

Hank smiled at her. “Have a seat, Sam. Oh, and by the way, I'm a grandfather now. I'll be showing baby pictures after this briefing.”

David caught Hank's eye and saluted him. “Sir.” 

“David. Glad you could join us.” Landry waved him to a seat opposite McKay. David nodded to the scientist. McKay was brilliant, and just as importantly, despite his annoying habit of continuously complaining, he followed military orders. He'd proved his trustworthiness time after time. He wasn't a blood and guts kind of guy, but he was brave enough in his own way, and with the right leadership he would buckle down and pull miracles out of his ass. 

He was David's first choice, hands down, to replace Rush on Destiny. 

The other people at this table he mostly knew. He'd debriefed Dr. Brightman after she'd used the stones to do surgery on Rush to remove the alien transmitter. Daniel Jackson he knew mostly by reputation, although their paths had crossed a few times when his gate team had needed Jackson's help for translations. Sheppard he'd met at the SGC a few years ago, when the Ancients had returned to Atlantis and kicked the Earth expedition out. 

He gave Sheppard a cool, assessing look. The man's unruly, spiky dark hair, rolled up sleeves, and his trademark look of lurking amusement just rubbed him the wrong way. Always had. Sheppard might as well have had the word, “maverick' tattooed on his chest. If it hadn't been for the ATA gene Sheppard carried, he probably would still be stuck at McMurdo. Although rumor had it that Sheppard had actually enjoyed his posting there. He couldn't deny that Sheppard worked well with McKay, though. Sheppard tended to mostly be laid back but when needed he'd crack the whip and McKay would settle down from whatever frenzy he'd worked himself up into and save the galaxy. Despite John Sheppard's talents as a pilot he was not on his list of SGC personal to replace Destiny's people. Besides, he was needed to man the weapons chair in Atlantis against enemy attacks.

The tall man in his forties with glasses and rumpled brown hair looked familiar. The man was a master sergeant, and David wondered why he was here. He sat next to Jackson.

Bill Lee was an expert on the stones, as well as a regular consultant to to Homeworld Command. David had known him for years.

David had been introduced to Samantha Carter years ago, when he transferred to the SGC and commanded SG16. Carter was... Samantha Carter was the best the Air Force had, brains, guts, and the very model of a team player. He respected her immensely. There had been speculation about her and Jack O'Neill being involved for many years, but David wasn't sure he bought it. He did believe they were close from their years together in SG1. Hell, there were rumors that Daniel Jackson and O'Neill were lovers. 

He personally didn't care who slept with each other, as long as it did not compromise the chain of command. You didn't shit where you ate, and common sense told you sleeping with officers or airmen under your command was a cluster fuck waiting to explode in your face. 

Everett learned that the hard way. He should have known better than to sleep with TJ. He had serious doubts about TJ's judgment, too, but according to his sources on Destiny, it didn't seem that she had made the same mistake twice. No, she appeared to be getting involved with Varro from the Lucian Alliance. Varro took orders, but he wasn't in the chain of command. At this point he probably could be considered a civilian contractor. His usefulness as a source of Lucian Alliance intelligence was over. At the best, any intel he could provide was three years out of date.

Landry ran his hand over his short, thick salt and pepper hair and then pointed at Jackson. “Dr. Jackson, this meeting was your suggestion. I'd like you to keep it brief and to the point.” He raised his rather bushy eyebrows at Jackson, which David gathered meant Landry was serious.

Jackson took the ball and ran with it. He started introductions and David learned that the tall man was Tech Sergeant Siler. David could vaguely remember him working around the SGC. He was the acting guardian ad litum and had requested to adopt the boy.

Carter, McKay, and Lee were there basically to brainstorm.

He wasn't sure why Sheppard had invited himself to this shindig. He didn't know Rush; he wasn't informed about Destiny. He was another ATA natural gene carrier, so maybe he had something to offer on that basis. Or maybe he was just there to keep tabs on McKay.

Jackson said, “Dr. Brightman is going to update us on Malin's status and General Telford is the liaison to Destiny and has been on Destiny both in person and by using the stones.”

Jackson looked tired, his brown hair untidy, and he hadn't shaved. He was a good match for Siler, who also looked exhausted. 

Jackson tapped at his computer and an image of a small naked child in restraints on a gurney filled the large display monitor against a wall.

“Approximately six months ago, Malin came through the stargate.” Jackson spoke at a fast clip. Rumor had it he'd made it a habit to try to explain as much as he could about a topic before Jack O'Neill would cut him off, and the habit had stuck over the years. 

Jackson went on. “Either he or someone else controlled the iris to allow this, which implies control of a great deal of power. However, he was woefully unprepared to deal with the personnel here. He couldn't speak any languages, although he does understand Ancient. The gate teams responded to him as a level one threat, and when he did not comply with orders, he was zatted into unconsciousness.”

Bill Lee said, “Didn't he bite someone?”

“Yes,” Jackson said. “He was terrified. I think it's important to realize that he made an almost instantaneous decision that he was in danger, and responded to that. This implies that he had an understanding of what guns can do, but probably on a subconscious level. Malin claims to have no memories of his life before he stumbled through the gate.”

David said, “Rush thinks fast on his feet, if we're looking at personality traits.”

Jackson changed the picture to a closeup of the boy. David examined the hair, the distinctive shape of his dark eyes, the pointed chin. The stubborn look on his face. He did look like Rush, especially with those eyes.

“Malin still cannot speak or make any vocalizations, except for sighing. Personality wise, he can form attachments, is not attention seeking, can be pretty stubborn, and will challenge authority. He's curious, intelligent, but unable, or he was unable, to comprehend math. He is reading and writing on an eighth grade level. He enjoys typical games and entertainments that a six-year-old would. He can be standoffish, and has thrown temper tantrums, although he's not done that for a while. He can self-heal and has telekinesis. Fingerprints and DNA match him to Dr. Rush, but Dr. Rush has never to our knowledge had any sort of Ancient talents, other than the ATA gene. It's likely that Malin gained those talents from ascending, and has kept them, against the Ancients' rules.”

Landry said, “Dr. Jackson, if we could move this along?”

“Yes sir.” He changed the picture again. It was a closeup of a child's drawing. David narrowed his eyes. Only Chloe Armstrong, Rush, and Scott had seen the Nakai, but these blue figures clothed in shiny black outfits resembled the descriptions the three eyewitnesses had given.

“There is evidence that Malin has some of Rush's memories, expressed in drawings such as this one of what we believe are the Nakai, his extreme emotional reaction to a violin song that he hadn't heard before, and his nightmares.” Jackson switched the picture on the monitor to a ship made of Legos.

David stared at it, and shook his head. Trust Rush to remember Destiny. He cared more about the ship than he did all the crew members combined.

“I can confirm that's a model of Destiny,” David said.

“Yes,” McKay said. “I concur. And the walls of math in the kid's room are also proof that Rush's memories in some way have returned. All very interesting, but beyond being another instance of the weirdness of the universe, why should we care?”

“A good question, Dr. McKay,” Landry broke in, raising his voice a little. “I'd like to table it until Dr. Brightman updates us.” He turned towards her. “Doctor.”

Brightman was a slender, dark-haired woman. Very intelligent, very competent, able to function under battle conditions, as she did when the Lucian Alliance had taken Destiny and she and other doctors had used the stones to save both himself and as many of the other wounded as possible. 

Brightman looked at Jackson, and then glanced at Siler, her eyes regretful. “He's not doing very well. After becoming unconscious early yesterday morning, he has remained a three on the Glasgow Coma scale, the lowest score. There is no physical reason that we've been able to find to account for the coma. I'm concerned about complications, but he was a healthy child prior to this incident so that's in his favor.”

“What about the ascendometer's readings?” McKay asked. 

“Initially, the EEG reading was ten, the potential ascension level sixty-eight. Currently, his numbers are eight and seventy-two. They have only increased, not decreased. For ascension to occur, the EEG number must be less than three and the ascension level at ninety-six.”

Brightman looked sympathetically at Siler. “I'm sorry to be blunt, but the kind of stress that his brain is going through, there's a real chance that he's going to die if he doesn't ascend, or so severely damage his mind that he'll remain in a coma or a vegetative state.”

Siler's face tightened, and Jackson placed a hand on the man's arm and said, “So we wait. But Malin is a fighter, and I feel very strongly that he came here, to the SGC, for a reason. A reason, Rodney, that we should care about.”

Bill Lee shrugged. “Are we sure this is our Dr. Rush?” He looked at Carter. “Remember when we were overrun with all those other SG1 teams from parallel universes? Maybe he's from another reality.”

“Let me do some checking,” Carter said, her blue eyes thoughtful, and opened her laptop. 

“Maybe he's a clone?” Sheppard threw in. “Like Carson Beckett?”

Brightman shook her head. “He's not a clone. His telomeres are normal. If he'd been cloned like Dr. Beckett was from an adult version of himself, then they would be significantly shorter. But, there are some anomalies about him. He's retained scarring that he received as an adult. I checked Dr. Rush's medical records. He's had the knife scar on his thigh since he was fourteen, and the scar on his chest is from surgery I performed to remove the Nakai transmitter. I don't have much experience with ascension or ascended beings, but if he retook form as a child, why did he retain these scars?”

All eyes turned to Jackson. He held his hands out. “Well. I don't know that there's exactly guidelines to go by but for what it's worth, my appendix scar was gone when I descended. For that matter, why did he come back as a child at all? I don't know Dr. Rush very well--”

David interrupted him. “You recruited him into the program.”

“Yes,” Daniel said. “It was a difficult time for him as his wife was dying of cancer. But he always struck me as someone who didn't like revisiting the past. The background research showed a pattern of moving on. He grew up in Glasgow, but he's never gone back since he started graduate school in Oxford. After his wife passed away, he arranged for the house to be sold without going there himself to take any possessions. I asked him about it, thinking maybe he needed to be encouraged to take some time, for closure, but he just deflected me.”

David said, “Rush has never used the stones to make any personal visits. Not even to Amanda Perry, and she was probably the only person he felt close to at the SGC.”

Sheppard drawled, “So he's not a people person? He was never attached to?” He waved his arm in an indolent manner, taking in the base.

“No,” David said emphatically. “He's passionate about Destiny and the mission the ship has been on for a million years. He doesn't care about the crew at all. He dialed the ninth chevron and callously _stranded_ those people just to stroke his own ego that he had figured it out.”

McKay waved his hand dismissively. “That kid, the gamer, he figured it out.”

Bill shook his head. “He put the finishing touches on Rush's algorithm but he and Rush together worked out that Earth's symbol had to be used for the last chevron, in order to lock it. Rush gives Eli the credit, I'll say that for him.” 

“He's a son-of-a-bitch, and manipulative, and he lies,” David said sharply. “The man is not to be trusted. I'd bet that there isn't a single soul on this base who would have something positive to say about him.”

Siler cleared his throat. “With all due respect, General Telford, you're wrong about Dr. Rush. He was always polite to me, and he helped with troubleshooting problems in my department that weren't his job. He even got his hands dirty a few times. He wouldn't accept any thanks, though.”

David shook his head. “If he was decent to you I guarantee there were reasons that benefited him.”

Siler said, quietly, “He never asked me for any favors. I know he was sad. He had a habit of kind of hiding out down by the power station with his notebooks, and I didn't say anything about it, even though technically that was off limits. I know sometimes he broke down and cried there. I saw him, but he didn't see me. I gave him his privacy.”

David narrowed his eyes. “I had two classified missions with him his first year here, and I saw nothing of the grieving widower, just a sarcastic genius with no social skills and a bad attitude towards the chain of command.” He laughed briefly. “Except for when he was doing a terrible job of pretending to be a team player and would try to smarm people.” 

He caught Landry's eye. Surely Landry had seen for himself how difficult Rush could be. Landry didn't say anything, though. “Yeah, he's smart.” David admitted. “And tough as nails. And he'd gladly cut your throat to save his own. If it hadn't been for his ATA gene, I wouldn't have considered him for the ninth chevron expedition. He knows I'll replace him if I can once there's two way gate travel to Destiny.”

“So,” Daniel said, crossing his arms over his chest. “An ascended being with no real ties to the SGC chose here to take human form again. It seems unlikely that Dr. Rush wanted to relive his childhood. It doesn't fit his personality. Now Orlin took a child form because he wanted to help us against the Ori and that way he could retain the knowledge of the Ancients longer. Maybe something went wrong for Rush when he tried it, since Malin can't even talk, but I have to wonder...”

“If he came back to warn us of some danger or to let us know what happened to the Destiny,” Carter said, smoothly finishing Jackson's sentence. “Sir,” she said, turning towards Landry. “I've just finished reviewing gate diagnostics for the day that Malin, Dr. Rush, arrived here. There's no evidence of the wormhole traveling through any solar flares or coming close to a black hole. It was a totally normal arrival, except for the iris being forced open. This means that it's unlikely he's from a parallel universe.”

“Unless,” Bill said, eyebrows raised, “he came through something like a quantum mirror and then traveled through the gate.”

“Why come here then, why not stay in his own universe?” Carter asked, the light of intellectual curiosity in her eyes. 

“Rush died.” David said it abruptly and all eyes turned to him. “There was a problem with dialing Earth while Destiny was in a star. I made it to the SGC, but everyone else that went through the gate was sent back two thousand years in time to a planet. They survived, and today there's flourishing societies made up of their descendents in that galaxy billions of light years from Earth. But Rush didn't leave Destiny, and the solar flare that caused the problem made the ship jump back in time something like twelve hours. He escaped in the shuttle and contacted the ship and the crew as they approached the star and the plan to dial within the star was scrapped. There were two Rushs for a while.”

“Yes, that's right,” McKay said. “The crew found the earlier wrecked Destiny right before it fell back into the star and scavenged it for parts. One of the Rushs stayed too long on the ship and died there.”

“It was Rush from the earlier timeline, according to Colonel Young's report,” David said.

McKay snapped his fingers twice and pointed at David. “There were two of you also. You came through the gate here at the SGC. The other Telford was also killed, correct?”

“Yes. To be honest, I'm sure that Rush sabotaged the dialing program.” David clenched his hands under the table. Thinking about what Rush had done always made him furious.

Bill Lee said, “The Rush that died.”

“Yes. Oh, I can't prove it. I also think he had something to do with my double dying on the destroyed Destiny. I can't prove that, either.” 

“That was three years and some change ago.” Bill Lee scratched his beard, then said, “I suppose the Rush that died ascended somehow and took his sweet time showing up here, for whatever reason?”

“It makes about as much sense as anything else.” David said. All this time travel, parallel universes stuff was nothing but a pain in the ass. “In twenty days, Destiny is due to make contact with Homeworld Command via the communication stones. We'll know more then. There's also the possibility that Destiny was destroyed crossing the void to the new galaxy and Rush ascended or, well, Rush and Young were sharing a stasis pod. Maybe something went wrong with it and they died and Rush or both of them ascended.”

“Why share?” McKay snapped. “Atlantis' pods aren't capable of handling more than one person at a time.”

“They ended up one pod short for the crew. Apparently Destiny's pods can handle it.” David shrugged. 

“No. No, no.” McKay leaned forward in his seat. “Whose idea was it?” he said, forcefully. 

“Eli Wallace. The gamer, as you called him,” David said, wondering what bug was crawling up McKay's ass.

“Sharing a neural interface like that will alter their brain chemistry, could forge connections between them that are incredibly inadvisable. There is a _reason_ that the later designed pods like we've seen in Atlantis and the one found in Antarctica and on the Aurora class ships fit one person and one person only. Sharing a pod,” Mckay waved his hand dramatically, “is an incredibly bad idea.”

“McKay,” Sheppard said, mildly. “Interesting, but not relevant right now. Let's get back to the here and now.” McKay's eyes shot to Sheppard's and David could see McKay calming down.

“Yes,” Landry said. “I think we're done here. Let me bottom line it. If the boy who formerly was Dr. Rush, either from our reality or another, our timeline or the alternate timeline, ascends, we'll see if he communicates with us as an ascended being.” 

He stared meaningfully at Jackson. “Hopefully he'll tell us then why he came back.”

Landry's gaze softened as he caught Siler's eye. “If he dies, then Sergeant Siler, Daniel, you have my sympathies. I know he's become something of a mascot to SG1, and that the team is fond of him.” 

Nodding, he continued. “Sergeant Siler, now that we know who he was, if he lives and recovers from the coma, then I'll give the green light to you adopting him, as long as there's no new abilities that could compromise the safety of the SGC. If he can't or won't control the telekinesis, then he'll stay here until Dr. Lee and Dr. McKay can come up with something that will control it for him.”

Bill Lee and McKay looked at each other. Bill stuck his tongue between his teeth; McKay squinted and then snapped his fingers together once. 

“You know, “ Bill said, “I bet we could miniaturize-” 

“That anti-prior device,” McKay finished. 

“I'll help, too,” Carter said. “Let's go down to Bill's lab after this meeting.”

“Getting your hands dirty, General Carter?” Landry said, with a fond tone. 

“Yes sir.” Carter smiled. “It'll be fun. I'm not returning to the Hammond until tomorrow. And I'd love to see those pictures of your grandson.”

“General Landry,” David said. “I want to be kept in the loop on everything that pertains to the boy.”

“I'll see to it. Is there anything else on your mind, David?” Landry looked at his watch.

“Two things. One, did Rush have help to ascend, and if so, from who? Since the Ancient who helped you ascend, Jackson, is tied up battling Anubis, and Morgan Le Fay is doing the same thing with Adria on the higher planes, do we have an Ancient who's bending the rules for us? And two, if the boy lives and recovers, then I think more aggressive techniques should be used to try to reach his memories. Nick Rush is a son-of-a-bitch, but if he came all the way back here then I'm betting there's a damn good reason he did it. Otherwise he'd be off on a higher plane trying to decipher that message from before the beginning of time.”

“What?” Sheppard mouthed to McKay.

McKay rolled his eyes. “The message in the CBR,” he said in what he probably thought was a whisper, but which carried throughout the room. “Honestly, do you ever pay attention to the science briefings?”

“Sir,” Siler said. “What exactly do you mean by aggressive techniques to recover Malin's memories of being Dr. Rush?”

“Well, there's several options,” David said, not liking the look on Siler's face. “Probably the easiest would be the Gould device that allow memories and dreams to be seen on monitors. It can also be used to force memories from a subconscious.”

Siler stood up. “I know about those, sir, and as Malin's guardian ad litum and father, I won't allow it. They're painful and they can cause psychological trauma.”

Landry stood up and walked over to Siler. He took him by the arm. “Sly, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I know this has been hard on you. Dr. Jackson, I'd bet a wooden nickel that neither you nor the good sergeant here has eaten anything much today. I'm ordering both of you to the cafeteria; get something to eat, drink, before you go back to the infirmary.”

“Sir, my wife is waiting for me,” Siler said.

“That's an order, Sergeant. I'm sure Mary would agree with me.”

Landry patted Siler's arm and motioned for Jackson to walk Siler out. “Dr. Brightman can let Mary know you'll be back after you eat. Go on now, shoo. And as for the rest of you, you're dismissed.”

Siler shot one last look at David, a grim look on his face, before Jackson herded him from the room. Below in the embarkation room, David heard the sound of the stargate turning and Walter announcing each chevron as it locked and SG11 being given permission to enter the stargate. Being here, listening to the whoosh of the stargate, reminded him of past times at the SGC. He'd enjoyed leading missions with SG16, but it hadn't been a long-term goal of his. His ambition had sent him in other directions.

“General Landry, good to see you again and congratulations to you and your daughter. I'll let the Hammond know when I'm ready to beam back to Homeworld Command.” David moved, held out his hand and Landry shook it.

McKay and Sheppard beat a hasty retreat, with Bill Lee right behind them. David supposed they didn't want to get stuck having to admire pictures of a wrinkled red-faced infant. 

Carter though, was smiling at Landry, who was whipping out his wallet. David stopped for a moment to admire her. She was beautiful, her long blond hair caught up in a pony tail. He wondered why she had never married, because she was a catch, there was no doubt in his mind about that. If O'Neill was keeping her at arm's length, the man was a fool.

David caught up to Dr. Brightman as she was leaving the room. “Doctor, I'd like to see the boy for myself.” 

She looked at him oddly, but said, “I'm on my way to the infirmary. Come with me.”

* * *

“So this is the ascendometer,” David murmured to Dr. Brightman, who nodded and then checked the IV line that was dripping fluid or medicine into... Rush. 

Baby Rush, but he could see the man's features in the small face and body lying limply on the gurney. 

Why was Rush here? David felt in his gut that it wasn't on a whim that Rush had come to the SGC. Rush hadn't wanted to return here in life, so after death and ascension there must be something immensely important he needed to communicate for him to return to Earth.

He glanced at the ascendometer again. The numbers had shifted since the briefing. The EEG reading was seven, the ascension level was seventy-three. 

Dr. Brightman laid her hand on Vala Mal Doran's shoulder and the woman stopped reading aloud, the book on her lap open to a page of illustrations of a forest. Some fairy tale, he gathered.

“Where's Mary?” Dr. Brightman asked. 

“I convinced her to try to get some sleep. She's exhausted.” Vala pointed to a gurney on the other side of the room, where a woman was on her side, eyes closed.

“Good. Sergeant Siler and Daniel are getting something to eat. General Landry's orders.” Dr. Brightman nodded to him. “General.” She walked away.

Vala looked him up and down slowly. “General Telford. Daniel said you would be attending the briefing.”

“And you're Vala Mal Doran.” Vala was attractive, with beautiful thick dark hair that cascaded down her back and the figure of a roller derby queen. He knew her reputation and while Landry had approved her joining the premier team of the SGC, David would never fully trust her. At heart, he felt she was still a con artist and criminal. “I've heard that SG1 has taken an interest in Rush.”

“Malin, you mean.”

“He's Rush.”

“He might have Dr. Rush's DNA, and some vague, troubling memories, but he's a different person now. A little boy.” She laid a hand over Rush's small one protectively. As if Rush in any form needed protection; David was sure that being turned into a little kid hadn't essentially changed Rush's nature. He'd no doubt manipulated these people into caring for him. 

“Feeling motherly towards him, are you?” That was hitting below the belt and he knew it. Vala Mal Doran was Adria's unnatural mother, Adria conceived in Vala's body by the Ori without Vala's consent or even knowledge. Mother and daughter had been bitter enemies for the most part, although Adria had wanted Vala to embrace Origin right up until Morgan Le Fay took Adria out of the fight. Vala had ambivalent feelings about her daughter, according to the mission analysis. 

Vala batted her eyes, her whole body suddenly radiating a languidness that masked her lightning fast ability to attack. He'd read enough SG1 mission reports to be familiar with Vala's style.

She bared her teeth in a smile and crossed her legs, letting her short skirt ride up on her thighs. “Perhaps, although Mary Siler is his mother. But you know Dr. Rush, he's a friend? Of course that would be why you're here.” Her voice shaded into something hard and knowing. 

He smiled back at her in the same manner, acknowledging that they understood each other. 

“What are you reading him?” 

“Hansel and Gretel. Malin enjoys it. One of your enlightening fairy tales on the value you people have placed on your children. The step-mother reminds me of my own.”

“Really.”

“Oh, yes. She would have gladly left me in a forest,” Vala said artlessly. “And I quite despise the father in this story.”

“Why does Rush like it?” David asked mildly.

“ _Malin_ thinks the children clever and self-reliant, and he heartily approves of the way they find their way home and outsmart the witch.”

Against his will, David thought of the Ancient lab that had been as attractive to the SGC as the cottage made of candy and sweets had been to Hansel and his sister. His team had gone into it with Rush to discover its secrets, only to find that a witch had taken it over. Rush had gotten them out of Nirrti's trap, had gotten them home. But not without cost, and David would never forget it. It had been the first time he'd seen past the quiet, almost fawning science guy facade and recognized Rush for the ruthless son-of-a-bitch that he truly was.

He stepped closer to Rush's gurney and stared down at the pale little face, the dark lashes, the way his chest rose and fell. 

“We're going to try to keep him here,” Vala said abruptly. “Those of us who love Malin, we're going to keep telling him to stay. And I don't believe you care if he stays or goes, General, so you need to leave.” She shrugged, giving him a steady look. “You're a black hole of negativity and if I can feel it, maybe he can, too. Sir.”

“What I want is to know why he came back. And you're right, I don't care if he tell us after he ascends. If he stays human we need to find out what he knows. It has to be something essential. He,” David laid a hand over Rush's heart, and felt it beating against his palm, “wouldn't be here if it wasn't important.”

He lifted his hand and wiped it on his uniform shirt. “I'm needed back at Homeworld Command.”

He turned and walked away.

Vala said, in a bright tone, “Now where were we? Oh, yes. 'And when the full moon had risen, Hansel took his little sister by the hand, and followed the pebbles which shone like newly-coined silver pieces, and showed them the way.”

They walked the whole night long, and by break of day came once more to their father's house.' Well, that was very intelligent of Hansel, and I'm sure that you'd do something just as clever if you were ever in trouble like that, Malin.”

He strode away, Vala's voice dimming as he opened the infirmary door and stepped out in the hallway. 

* * *

Upon returning to Homeworld Command, David made a few phone calls to key people. If Rush lived, remained a healthy child and not a vegetable, then the mission would be to pry out the information in his brain that had brought him back to Earth. 

He was Nicholas Rush, but the people back at the SGC, Jackson and SG1, those poor souls who wanted to take a snake in the grass like Rush into their home by adopting him, Dr. Lam, they wanted him to be Malin, a harmless foundling. 

They were in the way of the mission. 

They would encourage Rush to forget who he had been; they'd soothe away the nightmares, not see them for what they were, Rush trying to communicate his message. 

They would distract Rush from truly remembering who he was and why he had returned.

Rush couldn't be allowed to remain with them.

If he lived.

* * *


	7. Taken

**Homeworld Command. Pentagon**

David clicked the mouse and ended the video conference on the Lucian Alliance that he'd had with the IOA. He hadn't turned off the camera yet, and his image was on the monitor. He glanced at himself. It was a habit he'd developed since he'd begun using the communication stones. It was disconcerting to be yourself, have your own thoughts and emotions, and then look down to see another man's hands moving to your mind's commands. 

So he'd taken to checking, to see if the face in the mirror or glass or monitor was his own. He looked hard at his true reflection, at his skin tone, his dark brown eyes, the black hair that tended to curl a little if he let it grow, the cheekbones, all the features that he'd inherited from his mother's people, an eclectic mix of Cherokee, Scots, and Irish for which he could also thank for his height. 

It was a reality check, one that was still strong even though it'd been three years since he'd last used the stones to visit Destiny. 

He brushed his hands over his short military hairstyle and laid them on his desk, looking down at his large, strong, capable hands, the long fingers. 

He remembered how different it had been to switch with Rush – he much preferred Everett's body, strong as his own, if shorter – and how things that should have been within his reach were now over his head, how the slender fingers, the smaller hands had irritated him. 

He had been so tempted to ask for a razor and demand that Becker, the unofficial barber on Destiny, cut Rush's hair so that it wasn't hanging in his eyes or touching his shoulders. At least he always changed out of Rush's increasingly grimy shirts and jeans and into BDUs.

Although, to be fair, he supposed Rush couldn't help it that his clothes were becoming more and more stained and worn. If Destiny had a laundry facility that was as efficient as the shower system, nobody had gotten it up and running.

Destiny was on his mind constantly.

It had been fourteen days since he'd looked down at Rush on a gurney at the SGC infirmary. He'd had twice daily reports from Dr. Brightman on Rush's condition. Rush, kid Rush, had gone down to a five on the EEG scale, but the ascendometer's reading on his potential for ascension had stabilized at sixty-five for the last ten days. And four days ago, his EEG readings had started to improve. 

His email notification chimed. He tapped at his computer and brought up the new report from the SGC. 

He read it rapidly, noting that Rush was coming out of the coma, but was still running a fever that varied from 101 to 104. His EEG reading was at seventeen, and the ascension scale at sixty-five still. The fever had begun on day six of Rush's coma.

Brightman's report speculated that the fever was similar to the one that Cassandra Frasier had run when her body was adjusting to the retro virus Nirrti had implanted in her, activating in her teen years. The alien girl had been developing telekinetic powers, but she'd almost died from it. Hammond had okayed a deal with Nirrti, and the Goa'uld had stopped the virus' effects in exchange for her freedom.

Hammond had let a Goa'uld system lord walk through the stargate. That hadn't backfired, not at all. Of course, nobody wanted to let that girl die, but the right decision hadn't been made. Hammond and O'Neill had gone soft. And David and his team had ended up paying for that, in that hellhole of a lab that Nirrti had trapped them in. 

Sometimes, hard decisions had to be made. He was capable of it, had always been capable of it, even if it meant sacrificing a child. Or someone who looked like a child.

If Rush, trapped in that little body, won the battle over the fever, then it was more promising that he was going to live. It was too soon to find out if he was going to be cognitively impaired, but even so, he would still dream. Dreams that could be deciphered and perhaps they would learn the reason Rush had descended and come to the SGC. 

David was a strategist. He'd set his plan for taking control of Rush into action two weeks ago, contingent upon Rush living.

In six more days, he would touch one of the Ancients' stones, and wait, mediating, waiting, to see if he would find himself on Destiny.

And if kid Rush had woken up by then, David would begin interrogating him. 

If Rush was on Destiny, if the ship had weathered the trip through the void, then he intended to take another step towards forcing kid Rush to remember who he was. 

Adult Rush wasn't going to like it. 

But then, adult Rush wasn't going to like a lot of things David had planned for him once Destiny's crew had woken up.

Six days, and a lot of questions would be answered.

Six days.

* * * 

David closed down his computer and stood and stretched. It was almost time. He locked his office, and walked down the hallways of Homeworld Command, nodding to various officers who caught his eye.

He could have sent one of his subordinates to the SGC, but this was his mission and he should begin as he meant to continue. He planned on closely supervising Rush's interrogation until he'd gotten the information he needed. Dr. Brightman's report this afternoon said Rush would be discharged home tomorrow. 

Tomorrow David would be on stones duty, hoping for a connection with Destiny.

This evening he would be beamed into the SGC and he would leave with Rush.

He did not want any scenes with the Silers or SG1. He could easily arrange for Siler to be called away to fix some malfunctioning equipment if he was with Rush in the infirmary. 

SG1 was off planet meeting with Lucian Alliance informants and not due back for two days. He'd fed the intel to Landry, suggesting that his best people handle the op. He knew full well Landry would send SG1. David didn't put it past Vala to sneak Rush off the base if she knew David planned on taking him, or Teal'c to take him off world under his protection until Jackson and Mitchell hatched a scheme to stop David. 

They couldn't stop him. He'd made sure of that. 

As far as Landry knew, David was coming to meet with Dr. Lee about some tech Lee was working on. It would be a simple extraction. He'd order Lee to have Rush brought down to his lab to put on the bracelet, or to check on it if it was already around Rush's wrist. Siler would be sent on a wild goose chase and he'd beam out with Rush. 

Rush had been awake for three days now, and hadn't run a fever for the last four days. While he was weak, his cognitive skills were intact, or at least the testing he'd had proved that he hadn't lost his ability to read and write, or sign. He still couldn't speak, and that was disappointing. The mathematical talent he'd demonstrated before falling asleep this morning had been extraordinary. David wondered if Rush would surpass his considerable original abilities.

His suggestion to Dr. Brightman to use the Gould device to see Rush's dreams had been rejected. That had cemented his resolve that he needed to take charge and remove Rush from his current environment.

He knew he would be considered heartless, taking a child away from his adoptive family, but the stakes were too high to allow Rush to remain with them. 

He would send him back, when the mission was completed. When he had no more use for Rush. 

For now, he had set up a safe house, with all the equipment necessary to break through to Rush's memories. His team was there. They would follow his lead, even if it was unpleasant.

His last step before being beamed out was to meet with the IOA's legal department. 

* * *

Sly handed Malin his shoes. “Dr. Bill wants us down in his lab, kiddo. Put those on and then we'll say bye to your mama.”

Malin nodded and drew one leg up where he was sitting on his gurney, slipped one red sneaker on and tied it.

He beckoned to Mary and she held a hand out in acknowledgment. She had some questions for Dr. Brightman about watching for any complications from the coma Malin had been in for so long. 

He tousled Malin's hair and his boy looked up at him, smiling that sweet smile that just melted Sly's heart.

They had almost lost him.

They had almost...

He swallowed down the lump that seemed to have risen from his heart and lodged in his throat. 

Malin was all right. He hadn't suffered any brain damage that the doctors could find, and he'd become much more powerful with his telekinesis. Dr. Brightman and Dr. Lam thought that he'd used his healing power on himself, to protect his brain from the onslaught of the memories that had returned.

It was hard to tell what exactly Malin did remember of his former life. He had the skills now that Dr. Rush apparently had, mathematical and musical, for languages and his bent for technology, but he didn't remember people he'd known when he'd been Dr. Rush. 

Well, maybe that wasn't quite accurate. Maybe some of the feelings he had about people he'd known resonated with him, but not in a way he could explain.

It made Sly wonder if Malin had taken a shine to him because Dr. Rush had apparently liked him. Not that Sly had known that at the time. It wasn't as if Dr. Rush had been a buddy, or even more than polite and civil to him. Still, he had gone out of his way those few times to lend a hand, brushing off any thanks. 

Dr. Rush had known his way around a tool box, but now that Sly thought about it, he'd always deflected any personal questions. Sly hadn't even known Dr. Rush's wife had recently died, when he'd see him covering his face with his hands, sitting tucked up against the wall in the alcove by the power station room, muffled sobs sometimes wracking Dr. Rush's thin body.

He just known the man was in misery, hiding away, and wanted to be left alone with his obvious grief. 

He stroked a finger down Malin's cheek, and pushed his bangs back from his face. 

“Other shoe, son.”

Malin tugged on the other sneaker. Malin had his own life now, and it was going to be with him and Mary and their kids. Their kids knew that they were planning on adopting Malin, but they didn't know the classified stuff. 

They'd met Malin yesterday, on an upper level of the base that wasn't part of Stargate Command. 

Malin had been shy, ducking behind Sly's legs but his older kids had been great with him, coaxing him into playing a game, talking to him about becoming their little brother.

Molly Jean had been learning sign language since they'd told her about the mute child he and Mary wanted to adopt; Sly was so proud of her for reaching out to Malin. The little guy had warmed up to her right away when she'd signed that she was his big sister and it was her job to look out for him. Then she'd handed him a large Kit Kat bar.

“Daddy said that was your favorite,” Molly Jean said.

Malin signed thank you. He opened the package and then split the candy bar into eight pieces, giving one to everybody. 

“Okay, he's in,” Nathan and Michael said, almost in unison. 

“They do that a lot,” Johnny whispered to Malin. “Talk almost at the same time. It's because they're twins and sort of--”

“Johnny,” Sly said. 

“What, Dad? I was going to say... entwined. They're entwined.”

Sly just gave him a look. Malin was watching all of them with the fascinated stare that he usually reserved for shows about dinosaurs or robots.

Benny made a point of announcing that Malin was the baby of the family now, and that finally, _finally_ it was his turn to be a big brother.

Malin signed that he wasn't a baby, his lower lip pooching out a little. Sly hadn't intervened. Malin was going to have four older brothers and affectionate teasing by them was part of the deal.

Molly Jean came to his rescue, much as she had always done for whichever little brother was getting teased by the others.

“Of course you're not a _baby_ baby, Malin. Benny just means that you'll be the youngest now, not him.” She knelt and hugged Malin. He let her, and that was a great sign. Malin wouldn't let just anybody hug him or pat him on the back. “It's a pretty sweet deal, though, being the youngest. Mama and daddy let the youngest one get by with everything.” Molly Jean stood back up, tousling Malin's hair.

Malin rolled his eyes, smoothing his hair back down, making Mary smile. Malin's hair was like a magnet to people; they couldn't seem to resist touching it, running fingers through it or doing what Molly Jean had done, making it stick up in all directions. He looked like a bemused baby bird when people tousled his mop. 

“Not true, Malin, don't believe her,” Benny squawked, just like Sly had expected. This was an old, old argument between the siblings, which one had the better deal. Benny went on “When you're the only one left at home, then they watch you like a hawk.”

“Nah,” Johnny said, “Being the middle kids suck.” The twins gave emphatic nods. ”The parents don't want you to do the dumb stuff the older one got by them,” he gave a pointed look towards Molly Jean, “and they've still got energy to clamp down on you. By the time the youngest one becomes a teenager, they're too tired to make his life miserable with rules like “No, you can't go camping with so-and-so, without adult supervision. Be glad, be very glad, that you're gonna be the caboose to this train.”

“That's enough, you hooligans,” Mary said, walking up to each boy, and pulling them down so she could kiss them on the cheek. Molly Jean she put an arm around and squeezed. Mary and Molly Jean were almost the same height, Molly Jean had maybe an inch on her mother, and she'd inherited her dark black hair and fair skin. The boys were like him, tall with sandy brown hair. He thought about Dr. Rush for a moment. Malin was going to be the shortest in the family, probably. Even Mary would be taller than him by two inches or so. He expected the boys would end up teasing Malin when he was grown about being their little brother literally. He was betting that Malin would hold his own, though. His little guy was tough.

Mary walked over to Malin, bent and kissed him on the top of his head. “Malin, they're all my babies. They always will be, and so will you. They'll be fussing over whether it's better to be the youngest or oldest when they're seventy years old.”

Malin made some swift gestures with his fingers and hands and Molly Jean started to giggle.

“He just said that you guys are silly.”

“Yes,” Mary said. “They are. You'll get used to them. Boys, I expect you to help out with taking Malin to baseball and soccer games, if your school and work schedules don't conflict.”

“Malin, you like soccer?” Michael asked.

Malin nodded, and Nathan and Michael said, “Sweet,” at the same time.

He held his hand out for a high-five, and the twins both gave him one.

The rest of the visit was spent playing Yahtzee, and planning out painting the room that would become Malin's. The boys and Molly Jean were going to tackle it when they left the base. 

Benny pulled a page of math problems out of his back pocket and was in the process of conning Malin into doing his homework for him, when Sly intervened.

“Nope. Malin, listen carefully. You can check his answers to see if he did them the right way, but you aren't going to do his homework for him.”

Malin nodded and took Benny by the hand and tugged him over to the table and pushed him into a chair. He waited, expectantly. Benny groaned and took a pencil out of a pocket. He sighed and got to work on his summer school homework of Algebra II.

Mary beamed at Sly, happy, so happy now that Malin was well and coming home with them in two days. 

His youngest had started to tire rapidly after that, and Sly escorted his older kids out to the Cheyenne Mountain parking lot while Mary plopped Malin back into a wheelchair and took him back down to the infirmary.

One more night here on the base, and then Malin would be able to come home. Dr. Lee wanted to do some last checks on the bracelet that would lock around Malin's wrist, that would keep him from accidentally doing things that would call attention to himself.

“Ready?” Sly pointed to the wheelchair but Malin shook his head and stood up on the gurney, then flung himself towards Sly.

Sly caught him. “All right, monkey. I'll carry you.” Malin had been more clingy since the coma, sitting in Mary's lap, wanting Sly to carry him. Dr. Brightman said to just love him and hold him, and it would pass. 

Sly walked over to Mary and Dr. Brightman. He dipped Malin down so that he could give Mary a hug. Mary kissed him on the cheek, and played with a strand of his hair when Sly straightened up.

“No more than an hour, Sergeant. Don't let Dr. Lee keep you two longer than that. I want this young man to get a good night's sleep, and the night staff will check on a few things when you bring him back,” Dr. Brightman said.

“Malin, guess who's coming over to see you tomorrow when you're home with us?” Mary said, tugging on his hair.

Malin raised his eyebrows, and for that moment, Sly remembered the same expression on Dr. Rush's face.

“I'll give you a hint,” Mary said, like she was saying a riddle. “It's somebody you like a lot, that you haven't seen since you've been sick, and that's because this person just had a baby.”

Malin bounced a little in Sly's arms and made the sign for doctor and then made his arms into a cradle and rocked them, his eyes questioning.

“That's right, Dr. Lam is coming over and she's bringing her new baby.”

Malin made the sign for name and repeated the cradle motion.

“His name is Dylan Jonathan.” Mary said. “He's named for John's grandfather and for John. Dr. Lam says if you sit down on the couch and don't wiggle, you can hold him.”

Malin gave them a thumbs up. Sly wasn't sure who had taught him that, but he suspected Colonel Mitchell. And speaking of SG1...

He nudged Mary with a shoulder. “Hey, honey. I was thinking maybe we could have a barbecue this Saturday. SG1 should be back by then and I'd like to invite them, and Dr. Lam and her husband. Walter said that General O'Neill will be coming to the SGC on Friday to meet with General Landry. Maybe he'd have time to stay.”

“Oh, I'd love to see Jack again. What about Sam? It's been ages since I've seen her, and if she can make it then this time, Sylvester Siler, don't let her spend all of her time out in the garage with you and the boys, working on that motorcycle of hers.”

Sly felt a smile tugging at his lips. “Sweetheart, sergeants don't give orders to generals. If you want General Carter out of the garage, you're going to have to come and get her. But I'm not sure she'll be available this Saturday. I'll ask Walter if he's heard anything.”

“Invite him, too. And General Landry.”

Malin shook his head violently. 

Mary tugged at Malin's hair again. “Yes. I know you haven't liked him in the past, but give him another chance, kiddo. He's Dr. Lam's daddy, you know.”

Malin let out an enormously put upon sigh, but when Mary tugged his hair again, he nodded, then yawned.

“Time for you two to get down to Dr. Bill's lab,” Mary said. “Malin, I'll see you tomorrow morning. I've got things to finish up in your room. Sly?”

“I'm going to sleep on base.” One of them had stayed on base or in the infirmary with Malin since he'd fallen into the coma and recovered. Just in case.

Malin reached for Mary and she gave him another hug. “Good night, baby. Sleep well.” Sly kissed her and Malin waved goodbye as Sly carried him out of the infirmary.

* * *

“Time's almost up, Dr. Lee,” Sly reminded the scientist. He'd been watching the science types for well over a decade now, and he was very aware of how they could get so wrapped up in their work that the concepts of time and food and sleep were forgotten. General Carter and Dr. Jackson had been some of the worst offenders. Sometimes General O'Neill would march them off to the cafeteria and a bunk, other times he would just shake his head and cover them with a blanket when he found them passed out asleep over their desks. 

“Oh, right. Let's do one more to add to the baseline, and then we'll try the bracelet again.” Dr. Lee turned to Malin, who was sitting cross-legged on the top of a lab table. “Okay, this time, see if you can lift the two hundred pound weight up, and keep going till you're at the ceiling. Hold it there until you feel too tired, and then let it down gently. _Gently_.”

Dr. Lee looked ruefully at Sly. “Have you seen the damage to the floor where he dropped the other weights?”

“No. I guess Mary was with him?” Sly glanced around the room but didn't see anything wrong.

“Ah, yes. I think so. Anyway, I was going to send in a damage report but since you're here anyway?” Dr. Lee was pretty hit or miss with his paperwork on non-science things. Sly wasn't surprised that he'd put off reporting this to Sly's department.

“I'll take a look while you finish up. Where is it?”

“Through the door.” Dr. Lee turned his thumb towards the side door that connected this lab to the next room.

Sly tousled Malin's hair. “You've been a very good boy. Want to stop at the cafeteria when Dr. Bill is all done with you?”

Malin signed that he did, and that he wanted chocolate cake. Then he looked at Dr. Lee and signed book.

“I haven't forgotten. Here, I'll give it to your dad, okay? He can hold it for you.” Dr. Lee walked over to a bookshelf and pulled out a paperback. He handed it over to Sly.

“What's this?” The book had an intriguing cover, a picture of a planet's repeating images. 

“ _The Universe Next Door._ It's got some interesting physics stuff. Can time run backwards, was our universe created by super intelligent aliens from another universe, things like that. I promised Malin that if he helped me out here, I would give it to him.”

“It's not above his reading level?”

“No. Chown's writing for the layman, and he's got a knack for explaining things in understandable terms. Malin won't have any trouble. There's some talk that if the stargate program goes public, of maybe bringing Chown on board to explain what we've been doing since Jackson unlocked the gate.” Dr. Lee picked up a pen and a clipboard.

“Okay. I bet Johnny would like to read this, too, Malin. Maybe when you're finished. Johnny, my oldest boy, is studying to be an astrophysicist. General Carter's his role model.”

“Can't ask for a better one. Okay, Malin, go ahead. Lift the weight.” Dr. Lee stuck his pen in his mouth, chewing on the cap.

The weight on the floor slowly started to rise as Malin scrunched up his face and pointed a clenched fist at it.

Sly tucked the book under his arm and quietly left the room for the adjoining lab. He shook his head when he saw the broken tiles and concrete. Sighing, he sat down at a terminal and called up a damage report and started filling it out, Malin's book on the desk. 

Malin liked to read science books and would go to classes at Peterson Air Force Base once school started back up. Mary was planning on meeting with his teachers, to make sure he would be given work that wouldn't just bore him. For the summer, his older kids were going to watch Malin, when Mary was at work and he was on the base, although Peterson also had a daycare center. 

Mary thought it would be best to let Malin get used to his new family and living in a real home before adding daycare or camp into his life. At least for a couple of weeks. See how he did, if the nightmares would stop, if he felt safe now that Marines wouldn't be guarding him anymore. 

Colonel Sheppard had emailed him once the colonel had gone back to Atlantis, after Malin had recovered from the coma. He said that a member of his team had a boy about Malin's age, Torren, and that Teyla, his mother, had suggested that maybe Malin and his parents might like to meet on Atlantis or somewhere else, and let the boys play together. He'd written that Torren didn't get many chances to hang out with kids his own age, due to living on Atlantis.

Sly wasn't sure that using Asgard beaming technology to let a couple of six-year-olds have a play date was going to be approved, but if it was, he'd love to see Atlantis. Malin had never played with any kids his own size; it would be good for him.

He heard a loud thud from the other lab. It sounded like he needed to add another line or two to his damage report. He saved the document, and then went to check to see if that lab also had broken tiles.

He opened the door quietly and stopped with it just ajar. General Telford was standing in front of Malin, along with an airman carrying a shoulder bag.

“Hey, General. You're early for our meeting.” Dr. Lee checked his watch. “I mean, you're right on time. You know, I could have just sent you the results. You didn't have to make a trip in person.”

Sly could see that Malin was trembling. 

He didn't trust General Telford; he stayed quiet, wanting to hear what the man would say.

“Oh, I really did, Doctor. Although this is playing out differently than what I had planned.”

Dr. Lee shrugged. “Malin and I are done, anyway. I'm afraid you startled him when you beamed in here; he dropped the weight he was holding up with his telekinesis.”

“Is that right, Rush?” General Telford asked, an edge to his tone, staring at Malin. “Did I startle you? Look hard at me. You know me, Rush. You know me. I can see it in your eyes.”

“ _Rush?_ Sly didn't care for the General's tone or his words. He and Malin were leaving right now.

He stepped into the room, just as Dr. Lee locked the bracelet around Malin's arm. 

“There you go. Time for that cake your dad promised you.” Dr. Lee turned back to General Telford. “As my reports have stated, all preliminary tests show the bracelet is effective at stopping Malin's talents. He's going to wear it tonight in the infirmary, in case there's a problem. They're going to keep an eye on his vitals, and if everything goes okay – and it should, I mean, you have McKay, Carter, and me approving this thing – than Malin's going home tomorrow.”

“There's been a change in plans. This documentation will explain it. You have a go, Drugov,” Telford said, and the airman reached for Malin.

Malin rolled off the lab table and dashed towards the back of the room; Sly dropped the book he'd absent-mindedly picked up and in a few quick strides he reached him. Malin practically climbed up him and Sly hugged him, then whispered, “If I put you on the floor, then stay behind me. If I go down, run for the infirmary. Dr. Brightman can help.”

It was clear to him that General Telford wanted Malin. He'd take him over Sly's dead body.

“General. With all due respect, sir.” He spat out the word. “What do you want with my son.”

Telford laughed harshly. “He's not your son. He'll never be your son, but I predict he'll tear your family apart. He can't change his nature, and he's poison.”

“You didn't come here to stop me from adopting him. What do you want!” Sly rarely lost his temper. But anger was seething in him, but waiting for the right moment to explode out.

“It's vital to homeworld security that we decipher what Rush has been trying to tell us about why he returned here. Let me repeat that. _It's absolutely vital that he tell us._ He can't right now, with all of you people trying to steer him into a new life. He needs to remember his old life.” Telford started edging around the lab table, the airman doing the same on the other side. Dr. Lee just stood there, bewildered. 

Sly started backing towards the door to the other lab, Malin shaking in his arms. He needed to talk to Landry, to Jack. Telford couldn't legally just come in and take the boy. Sly was Malin's guardian ad litum.

Sly said, much more calmly than he felt, “I have the legal right to make decisions on his behalf. And he's staying here, with me and my wife. When he feels safe and secure, then maybe, maybe this supposed message will surface from his dreams. And if it never does, then that's fine. You can't place the weight of keeping our planet safe on the shoulders of a six-year-old boy.” 

“He's not a kid, not really. He's Rush. And I'm going to help him remember that. He'll be sent back afterwards, and you can keep him then. If you still want him,” Telford said, with a careless shrug. The expression on his face was... Like Malin was something unclean that nobody would ever want to touch.

The son-of-a-bitch had hated Rush, Sly realized. Oh, God, Malin. He couldn't let Telford have his boy. 

“Dr. Lee, call security, call Landry,” he said urgently. He hadn't been on duty so he wasn't carrying his radio. Lee was just standing there looking from one group to the other.

“You can, Dr. Lee.” Telford said, and held up a large brown envelope stamped classified in big red letters, then tossed it onto a computer station. “It won't matter. I have authorization from the IOA to take Rush with me. Stand down, Sergeant. You're no longer his guardian. I am. He's now strictly under IOA authority, not the military's, and the president has signed off on this. As the liaison to Destiny, this falls under my jurisdiction.”

“O'Neill didn't sign off on it.” Sly knew down to his boots that Jack would never do such a thing.

“True. He'll be getting a report in the morning about the change. He can't remove me from the project, though. He can't help you, Sergeant.”

He and the airman moved closer. Sly opened the door to the other lab and put Malin down. He said, very quietly, “Malin, when I tell you to, run. Run like the wind to Dr. Brightman. Tell her what happened here.”

The ranking medical officer could overturn Telford's authority to take Malin, if she deemed it medically necessary for him to remain on the base. It wouldn't work for long, but it could give him time to call Jack, and General Landry.

He wished he could take off the bracelet, so Malin could defend himself, but Dr. Lee hadn't given him the code yet. Right now, Lee was the only one who knew it.

“Sergeant, I'm ordering you to turn over Rush. Step aside, or face charges,” Telford ordered, his dark eyes narrowing.

“Dr. Lee, what's the code?” Sly shouted, grabbing Malin's wrist and turning the bracelet so its tiny line of numbers was accessible.

“Don't answer that, Lee, or you'll be facing charges as well,” Telford bellowed.

Dr. Lee threw up his hands. “I'm calling Landry. Let him sort this out.” Sly dropped Malin's arm. Lee wasn't going to help him. 

“We're done here. Last chance, Sergeant. Stand aside.”

In for a penny, in for a pound, thought Sly wildly. “Not a chance in hell, you flaming asshole. You want my son, you're going to have to go through me.” Heart pounding, he said urgently, “Run.” Malin dashed through the door and Sly shut it with a foot and advanced on Telford and his accomplice.

“Drugov,” Telford snapped. The airmen stopped coming towards him and changed direction towards the door to the hallway, dropping his bag. Sly went after him. Malin was a fast runner, but he'd been tired before they'd come down here, and Dr. Lee had run tests with him for an hour; using his telekinesis wore him out. He had to give Malin a chance to get away.

He reached Drugov as he was opening the door and he pulled him back and punched him hard in the face. The man staggered back, and Sly spun and kicked him with a maneuver that Teal'c had shown him.

He could feel adrenaline flooding his body; all his senses were sharp, his breathing harsh in his ears.

He repeated the kick and Drugov went down. 

He turned in time to fend off the steel pipe Telford was swinging at his ribs, grabbing it and pulling it toward him, unbalancing Telford. He yanked hard and Telford let go of it. 

Sly threw it across the room, causing Lee to yelp as Sly heard it break something made of glass. 

He faced Telford. On the floor, Drugov groaned and got to his knees.

Sly kept himself between the two men and the door. Telford hissed, “Give it up. Lee's gonna call for help and you're not doing yourself any favors. Stand aside, and we'll forget about this.”

“Go to hell.” Every second that he kept them away from the door was more time for Malin to get to the infirmary.

Drugov staggered to his feet. 

“Get the kid,” Telford ordered, and then Sly was fighting both of them off, spinning, kicking, dodging, landing blows and feeling blows against his body.

Feeling them, but not pain. Not yet.

He was panting, sweat pouring from his body. 

Drugov came at him and he used another one of Teal'c's moves, using the man's momentum against him to slam him into a wall. Drugov slid down but Telford was on Sly now, and they crashed into a table. 

Things started blurring, fists and grunts and blows to the head, and he saw Drugov stagger out the door.

Telford was bleeding from the mouth, and he just kept hitting the bastard, because he had to. He had to, he had to, he had to.

He had to put Telford down and go after Drugov.

Telford got in a solid body blow, and Sly staggered backwards.

He couldn't breathe.

His head snapped backwards from the force of a blow.

Telford spat blood on the floor and Sly regained his balance and kicked out at him.

Telford dodged and slammed into Sly, pushing both of them into a row of humming equipment. Sparks showered around them; he got on his hands and knees and staggered upright and saw Telford crouching, attempting to get to his feet.

He launched himself and took Telford down, knocking them against the equipment again. 

His head cracked against something, dazing him. He was on his knees.

Telford kicked him in his ribs, but he caught the other man's foot on the next kick and twisted Telford's leg, shoving him up and away.

He'd barely made it back to his feet before Telford came at him again, furious, blood drooling from his mouth, and body slammed Sly back into the equipment. It teetered, unsteady, the hum it made increasing to a loud whine.

Telford broke free of Sly's grip, pulled him forward, then shoved him hard. 

He crashed into the equipment, landing on his back.

Sparks, recognizing a broken power line that was close, too god damn close; glancing up to see an avalanche of metal coming down on him.

White-hot pain incinerated him, arching his body.

He couldn't hold on, not to Mary, not to his kids. 

Not to anything.

* * *

“Ah, fuck,” David shouted. “Lee, cut the god damned power.”

Lee scurried out of a back corner and to a panel on the wall nearest to where Siler was trapped under the machine that had fallen over him. 

He could see the man's hand twitching, but he knew, he knew Siler had to have been badly shocked. This was bad. His simple extraction was a cluster fuck now. He hadn't wanted to hurt Siler; the man was a good airman. 

This was Rush's fault.

Drugov strode into the room, Rush over his shoulder, struggling. “Sir! I have-- Ah, shit.” 

“It's cut, It's cut. I'll call the infirmary,” Lee babbled.

“Put him down and let's get this thing off Siler,” David barked at Drugov and grasped the edge of metal, while Drugov dropped Rush on the floor. He was betting that Rush wasn't going to run off again, not with Siler like this.

He flashed a look at Rush, took in the tears and the hitching breath, the horrified look on his face. Then Drugov was there and together they started to lift.

They only got it about six inches up before having to ease it back down.

“We need help. Lee, did you call security?” He turned his attention to the room, looking for anything that they could use to lever this dead weight off Siler. Maybe that pipe he'd swung at him.. 

“No, I couldn't before, you cut me off from the phone with all your fighting. I'll call now, but Malin can help.” 

David spun around and saw that Lee was sliding the bracelet off Rush.

Rush reached both hands out, clenched hard, and the machinery trapping Siler started to rise.

Drugov grabbed it, and David joined him, adding their strength and guiding the equipment up.

Lee's hands appeared next to his, “Holy Christ. This has got to be about ten times heavier than anything Malin's lifted before. Security and the medics are on their way.”

“Drugov's a medic.” David had brought him along in case Rush had to be sedated.

He turned to check on Rush. His eyes were closed and there was such an intense look of concentration on his face. 

“Keep going, Malin. You're doing it,” Lee shouted. 

The machinery felt light now, like it was made of cardboard and the three of them maneuvered it so that it was back in its original position.

Siler was sprawled out, unconscious, blood drenching the leg of his ripped coveralls. 

Drugov dropped to his knees and placed his ear over Siler's mouth. 

“He's not breathing. Starting chest compressions.” He locked his hands together over Siler's sternum and started a rocking rhythm of pushing down on the man's chest.

Rush fell down next to Siler. Tears were rolling down his cheeks, and he was shaking. He held his hands out right next to Drugov's and David saw him close his eyes. 

A soft golden light flowed from Rush's outstretched fingers and seemed to sink down into Siler.

Drugov pulled his hands away. 

Siler inhaled, his eyelids fluttering.

Rush moved his hands to the wound on Siler's leg and again, the light flowed down. Drugov took hold of the fabric near where the blood was originating and ripped it.

David watched, fascinated, as the edges of the deep cut knitted themselves back together. 

“Rush,” Telford said, but he didn't know why. He knelt down next to him. Rush glanced up at him, the pupils in his dark eyes blown, and a look of desolation on his face as he just stared at Telford.

Then he reached one hand up to Telford's face, to the cut that was streaming blood from above his eyebrow and touched it.

There was a warmth that lingered there after Rush moved his hand and touched David's split lip and he felt the same warmth again.

David touched his head, his lip. The headache he hadn't realized he'd had till now was gone.

Rush gave him a small nod, a look of regret and sorrow still on his face.

Was that expression for him? Or were Rush's emotions for Siler playing out on his face. 

Rush turned back to Siler, who was starting to stir, his arms and legs shifting. Rush touched Siler's head for a long moment, then looked at Lee, and gave a thumbs up. Then he fell over onto Siler, his eyes closing. 

Siler's arm curled around Rush, but his eyes didn't open.

“Drugov, check Rush,” David ordered, standing up. “Lee, I want the bracelet and the master control.”

Lee just stood there, looking bemused. “Now, Dr. Lee,” David shouted. Any moment now, there was going to be a horde of security and medics in here.

Lee jumped like somebody had goosed him.

“You can't mean to take him now. He probably needs to be back in the infirmary,” Lee protested.

“Get it, he'll be monitored for any problems.” David glared at him. “Now, Dr. Lee. You don't want to cross me.”

Lee shook his head but walked rapidly to a lab table and grabbed the bracelet and the small box-shaped device that could alter the code and track the wearer of the bracelet. He handed it to David, his mouth a tight line on his normally cheerful face.

Drugov said, “The kid's pulse is fairly slow, but he responds to stimuli, sir. He can be transported, but I think I should stay with this man till the medics come.”

“Agreed. I'll see you back at the safe house.”

David slid the master control into a pocket, and locked the bracelet around Rush's arm.

His wrist was so small, so fragile. 

He pulled Rush away from Siler's unconscious grasp and held him face down on David's shoulder. His small body felt lax against David's chest. Christ, he didn't weigh hardly anything.

He contacted the Lindbergh and was beamed out as security entered the room, weapons drawn.

* * *

David laid Rush down on the bed in his new room. He was still out cold, deeply asleep. The medic at the safe house was busy getting things ready to attach the dream monitoring device to Rush's temple. 

He hesitated, not wanting to handle Rush, but it would send the wrong message to his team if they saw him reluctant to be hands on with Rush.

So he didn't like touching him. He did a lot of things he didn't particularly like doing, if it meant keeping the people of this world safe.

He untied Rush's shoes, put them under the bed and pulled off his jeans. He unzipped the red sweatshirt and stripped it and the dinosaur T-shirt Rush was wearing off, leaving him in just his underwear.

A dinosaur T-shirt, for Christ's sake. Rush wouldn't be wearing anything that was in slightest way cute, or childish while he was here. There would not be any fairy tale books, no, and the only thing that could be considered a toy that David would allow were the Legos. They'd proven useful. The room was supplied with art supplies, paints, modeling clay, play-do, crayons, pencils and magic markers and paper. Drawing the Nakai had been an outlet for his returning memories before. Hopefully, it would still be. 

He pulled down the blankets and quilt, freeing them from under Rush's body and then covered him up. In no way was he conceding that he was tucking Rush into bed.

Rush was breathing slowly, and his face was tear-stained. He looked innocent. What a disguise.

Why had Rush healed him? He couldn't get the look that had been on Rush's face out of his mind. Did he remember how David's double had died, electrocuted on the doomed Destiny?

Had Rush caused it?

Rush couldn't take him in a fight. Everett had said that it was due to an accident that his double had died, falling into dangerous equipment the crew was dismantling to take back to Destiny. That was plausible since explosions had rocked the ship, but he knew it wasn't the truth. He'd seen that much on the face of the Rush who had survived. He didn't think Everett believed Rush, either.

Corporal West pushed the monitoring equipment close to the bed.

“It's all ready to go, sir,” she said. She walked around the bed and said, “I'm going to take his vitals again, and then we can go ahead. I'll numb his skin before I attach the device.”

“No need. He's really out of it. He won't feel it,” David said.

“No sir. If I don't it might bother him when he wakes up.” She reached a hand down and swept Rush's hair out of his eyes. 

She stroked fingers through Rush's hair, and David shook his head. “No. Stop that.”

West looked at him, puzzled.

David grated out, annoyed, “I'm ordering you and everyone who comes in contact with Rush to not treat him like the child he appears to be. Would you be doing that if he looked his actual age, which is, I don't know, in his forties.”

“Knowing he's had a rough evening, yes, sir, I would. I believe that touch can be healing.”

David sighed, wondering how he'd missed this attitude when he was screening for his team. “Well, thank you for being honest. When Drugov gets here, you're dismissed, Corporal. I'm taking you off this project. You don't have the right attitude to get the job done.”

“Sir?” She looked surprised.

“No, West. Next thing I know you'd have him in your lap, cuddling him out of nightmares. I'm sure you're an excellent medic, but you're not the right fit for this assignment. This is not a reprimand. But you're out, Corporal.”

She looked at him firmly. “Yes, sir. But I read the mission briefing. The IOA insists on medical personnel monitoring any procedures. It's my medical opinion that a numbing gel is needed on this person's temple, and I'm the ranking medical officer, sir. You can't overrule me.”

He held his hands out, conceding her point.

Rush hadn't been here more than fifteen minutes, and he was already causing dissension within his team. 

The man had always had a gift for being difficult, and being ascended and then retaking human form hadn't changed that, apparently.

He watched as West checked Rush's blood pressure and pulse, took his temperature. She numbed Rush's skin, and then inserted the device. A flinch crossed Rush's face and then his face smoothed out again. 

West looked at the readings on the side of the monitor. “He's probably going to go into REM stage soon. We should see something then.”

“You are recording all of this?”

“Yes, sir.” She pulled up a chair and sat down next to Rush's bed. 

“If he wakes up from a nightmare, do not soothe him out of it. Question him about it.”

“I'll do what I think is called for from a medical point of view, sir,” she said politely but with steel in her tone. Her freckled face was pleasant rather than pretty, her blond hair braided and pinned. She seemed more like a small town girl, not a trained soldier and medic, but she looked straight at him, unafraid of his rank.

He'd chosen West because she knew sign language and was an excellent medic. She reminded him of Lt. Johansen at the moment, though, and that woman had always been a pain in the ass to him on his visits to Destiny.

“I'll be in the kitchen, call me if you see anything that could be one of his former memories.” He walked away, a headache starting to unfurl.

He needed a couple of shots of whiskey, but he'd settle for coffee.

* * *

David grabbed the arm pushing against his shoulder, prepared to twist it, to defend himself.

“Sir, it's Drugov. Wake up.” 

Not an enemy. He let go. 

“Next time, stand back and just call my name. I could have broken your neck.” He turned on the bedside light, resting his weight on his elbow.

“I apologize, sir. You've been in some tight spots, then?” Drugov sounded curious. He sounded... young. Probably hadn't seen much action.

He got out of bed. “Yes. And it's mostly classified, and what isn't I don't want to talk about. Are we clear, Airman?”

“Yes, sir. There's some footage of Rush's last dream you should see. It's... it's pretty bad.”

“Is he awake?”

“Not now. He woke up scared. I helped him to the bathroom, but he was still mostly asleep. He tried to curl up on the floor so I picked him up and put him back to bed. He's asleep again.”

Drugov was looking guilty. “You patted him on the back or something, didn't you, Airman?”

“Ah, yes, sir, I did. He started crying after he sat up.” Drugov looked a little defiant.

God damn it. 

“Do it again, treat him like a child, and you're off the team. Understand?”

“Yes, sir. But I probably would have done the same thing if he was an adult,” Drugov said, a slightly challenging tone to his voice. David would make him toe the line or he'd be off the team, too.

“Hand him a tissue instead. I guarantee you that nobody would have patted Rush on the back when he was full size, if he was crying about something.”

“That's kind of sad, sir.”

“Do not get attached to Rush, Drugov. It won't end well for you if you do.”

“Yes, sir.” But he sounded uncertain, rubbing the back of his strong neck, finding something fascinating about the floor for the moment. 

“Show me what you've got,” David said, pulling on his pants and zipping up his uniform shirt, lacing up his boots.

He asked, as they went to the room designated for analysis of the recordings, “Did you ask him about his dream?” 

“He wasn't awake enough, sir.”

He sat down at the monitor. The screen was frozen on a scene of fire enveloping a room that he knew very well. 

He hit the space bar and sparks exploded everywhere on the screen. The fire licked the walls, growing stronger. An explosion knocked Rush – he guessed it was Rush, everything was from the point of view of the dreamer -- to his hands and knees. Rush staggered back to his feet, wiping tears off his face with both hands, leaving his palms wet. He made his way to the console and stood there, staring at the neural interface chair. Sparks showered down from the ceiling, the room grew brighter as the fire increased.

Rush stood frozen like that for some time until something caused him to look towards the door.

The dream changed then to Rush running hell-bent through the ship's corridors, dodging pieces of the wall as explosions ruined the ship, leaping over broken power conduits spraying out sparks like a hose watering a garden. Fire was everywhere. 

Then the dream shifted again, to what had happened today, to seeing Siler buried under the fallen machinery. He saw Rush's two small hands clenched in front of him, saw the equipment lifting off Siler's still body.

It ended there.

This could certainly be Rush's memories from when the earlier time-line Destiny had been destroyed. But both Rushs had been on that ship, and this memory-dream could have been either one's. 

Rush had contemplated using the neural interface chair, that much was evident. 

Dr. Franklin had been taken into the ship's CPU, transformed into code, his body destroyed, or the chair had helped him to ascend and he chose to remain with the ship. Or something like that. The Rush who stayed on Destiny when it was falling into the star could have sat in the chair and been ascended. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe something else, someone else had ascended him. Maybe what David had seen on that screen had happened when the stasis pods had failed, waking up their occupants. 

It was all very strange and weird, but he could believe it. Look at all the shit that had happened to Jackson and O'Neill. 

He checked the time. He'd leave for the Pentagon and Homeworld Command soon. He'd have to do some damage control with O'Neill, and then he would go to the communication lab. He would hold an oval stone in his hand for a moment, and then place it on the base.

Then he would wait.

His team had their orders for the day concerning Rush. There were as many photographs of Rush's life as they could find for Rush to look at, there was the music that his wife had played as a violinist that would be broadcast, and whiteboards covered the walls in most rooms, waiting for Rush to cover them with his math. 

He closed the file and left the room to get cleaned up.

Rush was still asleep when he finished, and David walked over to his bed and looked down at him. He was on his side, one hand starfished close to his mouth.

 _Quit hiding in that kid's body and come out, you son-of-a-bitch. Tell me what you came back to say,_ he thought.

Then he left him and went to find out Destiny's fate.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Universe Next Door](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Universe-Next-Door-Mind-blowing-Cutting/dp/0747235287/ref=la_B001IQZBGI_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1391811847&sr=1-3), the book Dr. Lee gives to Malin for behaving during the telekinesis tests.


	8. Just Another Day

**

Chapter Eight. Just Another Day

**

**Homeworld Command. Communication Lab.**

The wind through a field of hay. Trace the tall grass as it bends and twists following the breeze.

* * *

A single stone tossed gently into a still lake, the ripples fanning out, small to large until they touch upon shores surrounding the lake.

* * *

The sky darkening to dusk in the west, the colors of red and purple and pink shifting to darker hues. A single star blinks into existence, and slowly more show themselves until the blackness of the universe above him is peppered with bright and dim points of light, some red-hued, some bluish, some yellow. 

* * *

“Sir.” The voice echoes in his head, pulling him from his meditative state. “Sir!” 

“He told us not to disturb him, Airman.” A different voice, male, husky. “For your sake, I hope this message is important.”

“From your mouth to God's ears, sir.” A woman's voice. 

Theta waves had shifted, his consciousness had left the peaceful meditative state he'd been in since sitting down and touching the communication stone. 

He felt a hand on his body, squeezing his shoulder. “Sir!! Please, you need to contact your team. They said it was important.”

He opened his eyes, flexed his fingers from the classic meditative position.

Glancing at his watch, he saw he'd been sitting here for nine hours waiting to see if he could connect to someone on Destiny.

“General Telford? Sir, your team said it was urgent that you contact them.” 

“Thank you, Airman. You're dismissed.”

He got up and stretched, used the facilities and called the safe house.

Rush had slept most of the day. He'd woken up about two hours ago and had tried to leave, signing that he wanted his parents. Then he'd written it on the whiteboard.

Cue a massive temper tantrum, when he was told he was staying put. 

Which was still going on, according to his panicked staff. 

David shook his head and smiled. To his eye, Rush had always been about two steps to the left from pitching a fit over things he didn't agree with. 

The medic was going to give him something to calm him if he didn't wind down on his own within the next fifteen minutes.

_“Sir, you should see the mess he's made. He's thrown all the art supplies at the door, knocked over the lamp, torn the blankets off his bed and whenever somebody tries to get close to him he pelts them with Legos._

“Just ignore him. Eventually he'll run out of steam. Then when he's quiet again, show him the memory from last night, the one about being on Destiny.”

_“Sir, he pulled the dream monitoring device off his head. And nobody's explained it to him why he has to stay with us. He's too upset.”_

“Leave that to me, Airman. Once he's seen the footage of Destiny on fire, question him about it. See what he writes or signs. Oh, and he's not to be fed until he's picked up everything he's tossed. With Rush, you have to lay down the rules right away and make him toe the line, or he'll try to play you. Do not help him. Do not treat him like a child, either, no hugs, or comforting him. Be polite, but firm.”

_“Yes sir. I guess you haven't connected to Destiny?”_

“No. Not yet. Is that all, Airman?”

_“Yes sir.”_

“I'll let it go this time, but I don't want to be contacted every time Rush goes into a snit. Contact me if there's a breakthrough in what he remembers, otherwise, deal with him yourselves.”

_“Yes sir. Sorry, sir.”_

“Dismissed.” 

He did some yoga stretches, drank some water, and ate a power bar. Then he folded himself down into the chair, taking one last look at the communication lab, its boring gray walls, the monitors and equipment, the other desks with scientists or Air Force personnel working quietly. 

Closing his eyes, he slowed his breathing and let his thoughts drift away to watching autumn leaves slowly dropping from a maple tree, one at a time. He looked at the veins and noted the shades of red and yellow and orange and green splashed on each leaf as they drifted to the ground.

There were so many leaves.

* * * 

There was only a bare scattering of colorful leaves left on the tree when he felt the disorientation that came with exchanging consciousness.

Opening his eyes, he let out a relieved breath. 

He was on Destiny.

* * *

Eli wrapped his arms around himself a little tighter. Even with a borrowed BDU jacket over his sweatshirt, he was cold. As soon as Matt came back to the bridge, he was going back to rummaging through the BDUs again. Maybe another two long-sleeved T-shirts underneath his sweatshirt would help him stay warm.

The sound of the bridge door unlocking made him look up from the data on their three-year voyage through the void he'd been checking through, looking for any problems that might mean repairs for the ship. 

More repairs. The ratio of usable space to non-usable space was still about one to ten. Everyone had been bummed about hydroponics being blown out. Vegetables and fruits. Who knew that he would ever have become such a fan. Fixing that dome again was not going to be easy. 

And of course, Lisa being blinded by the star was a mega-bummer.

He hoped maybe that being in stasis had helped her eyes. He couldn't imagine being blind and stuck on this ship. She was a trooper, too, and had never blamed him or Rush for not being able to get her out of hydroponics when she'd been trapped there by the ship. 

Matt walked onto the bridge.

“Oh, hey, that was a fast fifteen minutes,” Eli called to him. They'd decided on fifteen minutes of stones duty every four hours to see if they'd get a connection.

Matt didn't answer, just strode towards him. Eli narrowed his eyes. It was dim in here and the corridors. That was Matt's body, but? “Matt?”

Nobody from Earth was supposed to be moving around on the ship. The note on the stones table said to just stay put, if Matt had swapped out with someone from Homeworld Command.

Matt was at his side, gripping his shoulder. “Where's Young and Rush? Did they make it?”

“Hellooo. And you are who, exactly?” Whoever this was was digging his fingers into Eli's shoulder, even through the layers of jacket and sweatshirt. “And ow?”

He tried twisting free but stranger-in-Matt's-body just grabbed his other shoulder, too, turning him so he was forced to look the guy in the face. He tried again to shrug him off, but Matt's strong arms were pinning him in place at the console.

“What happened to Rush and Young? Report now.” The guy shook him, like he was a fruit tree and the information he wanted would just fall out of Eli's mouth with enough force applied.

“Identify yourself first. And take your paws off me, you...” He let the rest of the Planet of the Apes quote go. Really, based on the reactions of the crew whenever he'd said it before, he was the only one on Destiny who truly appreciated that movie. 

Four years ago he would have just told this guy what he was asking, but he was a seasoned galactic explorer now. Hell, he'd learned to hold his own with Rush, after all. And maybe some of the man's unimpressed attitude with military types barking orders at him had rubbed off on Eli. 

So he waited, until Matt's pleasant, boyish features shifted into a scowl that looked somewhat familiar on his friend's face. 

Oh. He was pretty sure who was letting him go now. He couldn't say he'd missed this guy at all. 

“General Telford, Mr. Wallace. Now, what happened to Young and Rush? McKay had serious reservations about the effects on them from sharing a stasis pod. Are they alive?” 

“General? Um, congrats? And no, they're fine. Really.” Eli hoped he kept the doubt out of his voice. Because “fine” wasn't _exactly_ accurate. But they were alive, and coherent, and um, yeah. 

“Rush is alive,” Telford said, more to himself than Eli.

“Yeah. They both are. And the rest of the crew is fine, too, thanks for asking. We're just keeping them in stasis until we recharge at the next star.” Eli pulled up the navigation screen, but Telford ignored it.

“Which will be when?”

“A week.”

“Power levels?” Telford barked out.

“Low. That's why it's so frakking cold and dark, and life support is turned off in a lot of areas. But Rush and I both checked the calculations and we'll make it.”

“Young, you, Rush, and Scott. Anyone else out of stasis? Wray?” Telford looked around the bridge, as if he'd missed seeing the crew at their stations. 

Eli shook his head. “No. We didn't see the sense in making more people miserable. As a matter of fact, after this contact with Homeworld Command, we won't be back on the stones until after we've woken up the crew and hopefully re-stocked up on water and supplies.”

“The IOA will want Wray to report,” Telford said, again, more to himself than to Eli. 

“What's to say? We made it. Why should she stay half-frozen just to pass that along.” He shivered, and tucked his hands under his arms. Fingerless gloves would be nice. Hot chocolate. His little space heater from his room back in Boston. 

“I want to talk to Young and Rush. Radio them.”

Eli shook his head. “Radios are recharging. Anyway, Colonel Young and Rush are sleeping. We're taking twelve-hour bridge shifts, me and Matt, and then Rush and the Colonel.”

“Rush is sleeping? I find that hard to believe.”

Privately, Eli doubted it, too. “Colonel Young ordered him to get some rest. They're both really tired, although I don't think that's because of being in stasis so much as they hadn't gotten much sleep before we tucked everybody into their pots. Turns out stasis is not a substitute for actual sleep cycles.”

Telford narrowed his eyes. “I don't care. Everett can catch up on his beauty rest, I think I've gotten all the relevant information I need from you, but I'm going to talk to Rush.”

Eli watched him go out the door, counted to thirty and then cautiously opened the bridge door and looked down the corridor. 

Telford was gone, no doubt heading for Rush's quarters.

Too bad that Rush wasn't in them.

* * *

Running to the Colonel's quarters was one way to stay warm, Eli thought, as he rounded a corner. 

He really, really hoped that Young and Rush weren't busy generating heat between them because this was going to be awkward as hell with just knocking on the door and letting them know the Spanish Inquisition had just rode into town, and was looking for Rush. 

Who, you know, probably would have been a bad-ass heretic, back in the day, but whatever, brain, stay focused. He kept on jogging at a fast clip, wishing that the Colonel's quarters weren't so far away from the bridge.

As he moved through Destiny's darkened corridors, he kept thinking about what Telford had mentioned, that McKay expected the Colonel and Rush to have problems from being in stasis together. 

And yeah, maybe they were having some... adjustment issues because of mingling minds in their pod. Neuroscience, man. If this wasn't a case of “Here be Dragons” with mapping out the boundaries of having two different biological neural networks sustained together with alien, incredibly more advanced than us dumb humans, poorly understood technology, than what was, he wanted to know.

He flashed to what he had seen in their stasis pod, after Destiny had woken him up. He'd felt elated that they'd made it to the new galaxy but the ship was going to be cold and dark until they flew to the right kind of star to refuel.

The sensor readings indicated the crew were fine in stasis, but he wanted to make sure so he double checked each pod visually, feeling reassured by seeing his friends and shipmates standing quietly in the eerie blue stasis light.

Except for Rush and Young. He'd glanced at them and then had felt like a creeper for not being able to stop staring at them. And yeah, Eli Wallace was not naive, and he wasn't homophobic; he was fine with guy on guy action but this was Rush and Colonel Young. The mind boggled.

He knew that they'd been getting more physical with each other in the pod, so that stasis would engage once the necessary benchmark had been reached. Hell, he'd coached the two of them because he'd known Rush would have a hard time with the lack of personal space and whole touching thing. The man had barely been able to tolerate the hug Eli had given him, for crying out loud, and that was just a hey, you're human, I'm human, and sometimes humans need to give each other a hug kind of a deal. 

Once they'd gotten with the program, he'd given them a countdown, figuring they'd cool it then, but apparently not so much. 

They were wrapped up with each other, bare-chested and kissing like they were on the cover of some gay romance novel. 

Rush's jeans were low on his hips and Young's hand was on the inside of them, cupping Rush's ass. 

So, that seemed a little above and beyond the call of duty for Colonel Young. 

He'd kept staring at them, wondering if maybe the intensity that had marked their interactions had been of the enemy mine type except with becoming lovers instead of brothers. 

He'd thought they hated each other. But... Rush had let the shuttle dock and saved the Colonel's and Matt's lives during the mutiny, and he'd caught the Colonel during the space jump that had gone wrong. 

It would have been so easy for him to pretend to miss and Young would have floated away, just an unfortunate accident. 

The Colonel had spent hours watching kino footage of Rush doing nothing more than working ungodly amounts of hours, and trying to massage his obviously aching shoulders and neck all the time. When Rush didn't know he was being filmed and he was alone, he dropped the arrogance he projected when he was with the science team or challenging the Colonel. He usually just looked tired, and sometimes kind of lost. 

He'd thought the Colonel watched those boring videos, where Rush _wasn't_ taking over the ship, out of duty, or you know, out of paranoid obsession, but now he wondered if it was because Rush fascinated the Colonel. Maybe more so when he seemed sad and kind of vulnerable. Because no way would Rush ever let the Colonel see him like that in person. 

He'd noticed, hell, the entire science team had noticed, that the Colonel would crowd Rush when he was angry with him, sometimes so much so that they were practically touching. Intimidation laced with attraction?

Eli had managed to finally tear himself away from looking at the two of them, feeling a little scarred for life. That was mostly because he avoided thinking of Rush as a person who had sexual feelings. It just seemed wrong to him. It had really seemed wrong to him when he'd caught Rush kissing Ginn, but then he hadn't really been kissing Ginn. He'd been kissing Amanda Perry, who'd had no problem seeing Rush as a sexually attractive person. Still, no. Time for brain bleach.

And no way was he going to be hanging around when he uncorked Young and Rush. He'd go to the bridge and end their stasis from there. He'd leave a note on the console here, telling them that's where he was and suggesting they raid the extra BDUs for a few more layers of clothing because it was cold in the ship and staying that way for a week. 

So, he didn't know exactly what had happened when he turned off their pod. 

It took them a while to make it to the bridge, and he didn't miss the fact that they were standing awfully close together, side by side. Or that Rush's hair was tousled and tangled. That Young's lips were reddened or that Rush's neck was sporting a hickey.

“Are you guys alright?” They didn't look it, they both seemed kind of dazed.

“Aye, we're fine,” Rush said, but he was avoiding looking at Eli. He wrapped his arms around the two BDU jackets he was wearing, the outer one too big on him. Eli wished he could have doubled up like that, but another jacket on him would be like wearing a corset. So, no. 

“Really,” Eli threw back at Rush. “Because you look like you couldn't even recite the multiplication tables right now.”

Eli turned to the Colonel. “I think I should unfreeze TJ. You guys don't seem okay to me.”

“No, no.” Rush said, without much force. “It'll pass, I believe.”

The Colonel put his hand on Rush's shoulder. “It might be a good idea.”

“She can't help with this. I told you what we'll have to do.” Rush put a hand over the Colonel's for a moment, and then pushed away from him.

“Well, tell _me_. Can you guys read each other's minds?” Eli widened his eyes at both of them. “Are you guys like, soulbonded now?”

The Colonel gave Eli his 'Drop the jargon and talk English' look, but Rush just looked bewildered. Wow. He really wasn't on his game because he never let Eli see him looking confused. Eli had to go by things like if Rush was opening and closing his fists, or how often he pushed a hand through his hair. He'd never told Rush he'd cracked the code on Rush's body language, because when you were dealing with irascible, brilliant, close-mouthed Scottish math types, you needed every advantage you could figure out.

“What?” Rush asked, and ran a hand through his tangled hair. It didn't improve it. The Colonel moved next to him, his shoulder touching Rush's. That was interesting. It was even more so when Rush leaned a little against the Colonel. He wondered if Rush knew he had done that.

Rush was still giving him that confused look though, so he elaborated. “Soulbonding. It's like when you're so in to a character in a video game or movie that you feel like them, like you know them inside and out, and you can feel their emotions. Like when Velen decided to teach Anduin, man, I could feel that he'd made the right decision. I _was_ him, and you know, I did become a teacher on Novus.”

Rush said, slowly and carefully, like he was having trouble articulating, “Who is Velen?”

Eli grinned. “World of Warcraft; he's this really cool mage dude who--”

Rush held up his hand. “Spare us. And no, the Colonel and I can't read each other's minds. Not right now. And not ever, because we're going to fix this.” He had spoken too slowly, sounding vague.

Eli turned to Colonel Young. “You haven't said much. What is it that needs to be fixed? Because I will get TJ, if I need to.”

The Colonel sighed. “I don't know the technical end of this. Rush thinks he understands what's happening with all of that, but in layman's terms, being in that stasis pod after, uh...”

“Making out,” Eli supplied, since the Colonel seemed stuck and Rush wasn't jumping in there to help him out.

Rush suddenly seemed to sharpen up and he threw a suspicious look at Eli.

“Yeah.” The Colonel grimaced. “So there was bio-chemical stuff going on and now we're... open to taking things to the next level, where I guess maybe that bonding thing would happen. I don't know that I'd feel what he feels, but maybe. It's not going to happen. We're treating this as an addiction, and we're going to taper down until all of these...”

“Cravings, urges, impulses to jump each other?”

“Eli,” snapped Rush, and it was so much like his usual rebuking tone of voice that Eli grinned in relief. 

“Until.” Colonel Young waved a hand, acknowledging Eli's words. “It goes dormant or just plain disappears. We don't really know. For now, we've got to stay close to each other. Rush has got it worse than me, though.”

“Thanks for that,” Rush hissed, turning to face the Colonel and glaring at him. “I thought we agreed to keep all of this to ourselves. It's no anybody else's business.”

“Hey, I'm not going to tell anyone, except maybe TJ,” Eli said, trying to sound soothing. “You guys might be too compromised to make that call, so you'd better convince me that you're going to be all right. You were both kind of out of it when you came to the bridge, although you seem better now.”

“It will wear off, Eli. We're no gonnae tie ourselves together. We'll be fine,” Rush said tiredly.

“And I should take your word on that because?” Eli said politely.

Rush sighed. “Maybe if we were both Ancients, bonding would have happened but we're not, and we're not going to make it happen. And that's all you need to know. Now, show me your calculations on when we'll reach the next star.”

“Colonel, I'm going to keep an eye on you both, just so you know,” but he said it gently, not wanting it to sound like he was threatening them. 

The Colonel gave him a rueful smile. “I'd give you permission, but I don't think it matters, so that's fine. Just understand, we're going to need some privacy. Rush is going to be with me in my quarters for a while. Hopefully before we reach the star, we'll be back to normal.”

“Here.” Eli pulled up his calculations and slid out of his seat, waving Rush to sit down. The man did so, and Eli watched him work. He didn't look quite as fast as he usually was at going over Eli's math. There was going to be a quiz when Rush said he was done; he'd be able to tell if Rush was trying to fake understanding Eli's work. 

Eli was kind of looking forward to that. 

“So, tell me about the ship,” the Colonel said, sounding better himself. More commanding officer like. “And if it's going to be this cold till we get to the star, there's no sense in letting people out of stasis.”

“We're a week out from refueling, and we're low on power,” Eli told him. “But we're fine on food for just a few people, mostly the protein slop. We've still got some dried beef jerky from Novus, too.”

“What's the temperature?” the Colonel asked. 

“Forty degrees--”

“Metric system, Mr. Wallace,” Rush interrupted, with his pet peeve. Honestly, half the time the science team deliberately baited him about it. Volker was especially fond of doing it, since he said Rush thought he was an idiot anyway.

“4.444444444444445 Celsius,” Eli said, grinning at the look on the Colonel's face. “But the ship has made it clear it's not going to warm up or make the lights brighter.”

“I think Scott should join us,” the Colonel said briskly. “We'll do twelve-hour bridge shifts in two teams, me and Rush, you and Scott. But Eli, he doesn't need to know about me and Rush. You understand that?”

“Yeah, I got it. I think Matt and me should have the first shift though, and you guys should go to bed.” He cringed. “I mean to sleep. Unless I guess you have to, uh, make out again so that your brains don't explode or something.”

Rush was rolling his eyes. “Mr. Wallace. Don't worry about it.”

“Oh, great. You have no idea how much those four words trip my anxiety alarm.” Eli crossed his arms over his borrowed jacket and gave Rush an unimpressed look. He hoped he looked unimpressed. He'd been practicing that look ever since he'd met Rush, trying to copy Rush's expression, a mixture of disdain and disbelief that anyone would bother him with such nonsense.

“We're going to be fine, Eli. Just another day in outer space,” Colonel Young said, coming over and clapping him on the back.

Yeah.” Eli smiled back at the Colonel. “Just another year in outer space.” 

Eli was forced to come back to the present when he realized he was almost at the Colonel's door. He slowed, and tried to catch his breath.  
It would be ludicrous to knock on the Colonel's door and then not be able to say what he was doing there.

He gave three sharp raps and waited, chest heaving. 

Nobody came to the door, no familiar voice told him to let himself in.

Crap.

He knocked again, louder, and started to worry about where Telford would go once he'd forced open Rush's door and saw the empty room.

He might come here. That would be bad. No, him catching the Colonel and Rush in here together would be a disaster because he had a feeling nobody was on the couch. All the time that Rush and Colonel Young had spent on the bridge they'd been like binary stars circling each other, the attraction between them as strong as gravity to his eyes.

He knocked again. 

Silence on the other side of the door.

Crap to the power of ten.

 _Please let them not be screwing; please let them not be screwing._ That was his new mantra as he hit the control and opened the door.

He looked both ways down the corridor and then stayed in the open doorway, quietly hissing, “Colonel? Rush? Guys, Telford is here and looking for Rush.”

Thank God, thank God, thank God, it was black in there with only the dim light from the corridor barely illuminating the room.

But it was enough light to realize that they were in bed.

And that they weren't sleeping.

“Guys, stop.” No response, but he heard Rush make an absolutely obscene sound. 

Shit! They both were going to owe him _so much_!

He shut the door and made his way towards the bed, hitting his shin on the edge in the almost perfect blackness. “Guys! You've got a problem and his name is Telford!”

“Wha'? Go 'way, lad.” That was Rush, and he sounded drunk.

“Eli? Say that again?” Oh, thank God, the Colonel sounded more with it.

“Telford switched with Matt and he's determined to talk to Rush. He went to Rush's quarters looking for him. I ran down here to warn you. Is Rush gonna be able to handle him? Oh, and he's a general now. He was willing to just let you sleep, Colonel. I'm guessing you don't want him seeing you guys together here, do you?”

“No. Thanks, Eli.”

“Oh, you so owe me. You both do. Especially Rush. Do you want me to disrupt the stones and bring Matt back?”

“Tempting,” Colonel Young said, his voice sounding whiskey rough, “but it will just raise more questions. We'll handle Telford. Go on back to the bridge.”

“Okay. Fill me in when you've gotten the Spanish Inquisition off the ship.”

He turned and blindly groped his way to the door, feeling around for the control.

Right before he hit it he heard Colonel Young say softly, “Nicholas, I'm sorry.”

Rush's answer was too low to make out, exactly, or maybe he was speaking in something that wasn't English, the lilt in those slurred words was strong, but the tone of his voice was...

Sorrowful. 

Like he was saying goodbye to a lover forever.

Eli left then, and counted himself lucky he didn't run into Telford on the way back to the bridge.

Yep. Just another day in outer space.

* * *

After Eli left his room, Everett kissed Rush on the forehead and switched on the bedside lamp, the light flickering weakly. The room was freezing and he sighed, lying back down and pulling the covers up from where they'd been disturbed by his movements. He had no clue what Rush had just said, but the soft words, the ache in his voice – Rush didn't usually let anyone see him feeling vulnerable. 

He wished Eli hadn't interrupted him and Rush, but Eli was right. They needed to know that Telford was hunting for Rush.

“Hey, Ace,” Everett said and gently turned Rush's face towards his own, so they were staring at each other, the bed warm beneath them. “Are you okay?” 

“No. This isn't real, Colonel.” Rush sounded so resigned, the haze of approaching orgasm cleared from his voice. His eyes were dark pools of desolation. 

“Nicholas, c'mon.” Young tugged Rush closer to him, and ran a hand down his back, loving the feel of his smooth skin. God, but they had been so close. They'd gotten carried away, the careful agreement they'd made after stumbling out of the stasis pod forgotten as skin met skin, and the simple comfort of touch they'd mapped out as acceptable became inflammatory instead, their hands arousing each other until they both were lost in sensation. 

But... maybe this connection that Rush was sure would be cemented between them by having sex wouldn't be so bad. 

“Nicholas, is it? Like we're mates, lovers? It's a fucking lie, Colonel.” Rush laughed and it was as harsh as battery acid. “You don't like me on a good day. And on a bad one? Has the dopamine dumped in your brain made you forget that you've hated me? It wasn't love bites that you left on me to remember you by, was it, on that planet and on the alien ship.”

“You aren't very likable, Nicholas.” He gently pushed Rush's overgrown bangs away from his dark eyes with a finger.

“Oh, no?” Rush said, with a twist to his mouth, a horrible imitation of a smile. 

“Nope. And you know it. You haven't made a decent attempt to get along with me or the crew. But right now? I'm liking you just fine.” Everett stroked Rush's hair, then tightened his arm around him. “I'm rethinking our agreement. Maybe this thing, this bond, will smooth out the rough edges between us. It could be a good thing.”

Rush bit his lip and for a fleeting moment doubt crossed his face. Then he shook his head, and said tiredly, “And if these feelings don't last? – and I doubt very much that they would – we could be tied together mentally, emotionally, physically, and that sounds like pure fucking hell. The archive – ah, the bloody Ancients didn't like spelling things out, the bastards, but there is a high probability that there would be changes in our brains permanently.”

“Because we've opened up new pathways in our neural circuitry, but they'll shut down if we don't use them. I know what you said. But this feels right.” It did, and he kissed Rush, feeling another surge of arousal. And for just a moment, Rush kissed him back, his mouth softening under Everett's before he drew back.

Rush said, sounding angry and sad and exhausted, “O' course it feels right. Use that brain of yours and leave your dick out of it. I told you it's just the effects of dopamine and oxytocin and the bloody limbic system. What you're feeling, what I'm feeling right now, it's just a hallucination. _This isn't real between us._ I think... I think I prefer the flashblacks of being with the Nakai.”

“You'd rather experience torture again than me kissing you, fucking you, is that right? And touching me is worse than having your chest cut open?” Everett found himself becoming angry. God, Rush was a lotta work.

“Yes.” Rush pushed against him. “Let me go, Colonel. Hopefully, we've touched enough that we can stand to be apart. Telford must have left my quarters by now and started nosing around the ship. He's probably been by the control interface room and maybe the math hall. We need a plan.” 

Instead of letting him go, Everett rolled on top of him, letting his weight pin Rush to the bed, trapping Rush's hands under his own. He could feel Rush's erection, and his own was rock hard.

He looked down into those dark eyes and tightened his grip on Rush's wrists. “I can feel you trembling, Nicholas. But you're not scared. You're never scared, not when guns are pointed in your face, and certainly not when you decided to be alone with me on the planet, the alien ship. Alone with the person you'd been playing. You never stopped to think that I might catch on, did you, and there you were with nobody to see what I might do to you.” 

Rush narrowed his eyes. “Are you threatening me? You're not a rapist, so why should I worry? And get off me.”

“You didn't think I was a murderer, either. Or that I'd beat the attitude out of you. Are you that sure about what's going to happen here, in my bed?”

“Colonel Young. You think you know me; well, I know you, too. You're not going to force me, so give over.”

“I wouldn't have to force you. You're trembling because you can barely hold it together and not beg me to fuck you.”

Rush closed his eyes. 

Everett put his lips next to Rush's ear. “I want to do it, Nicholas. I want to take you just like I took your name. I want you to know that.”

“You can be such a bloody bastard, Colonel,” Rush said bitterly, his voice low and raw.

“Open your eyes, Nicholas.” Rush shook his head, kept his eyes closed. 

“I could touch you right now and you'd let me bring you to orgasm. You'd spread your legs and let me in. Still think I won't do it?” Everett gently bit Rush's ear lobe before lifting his head so he could stare down at the man under him.

Rush shuddered, and Everett could feel his heart pounding against Everett's chest. Rush opened his eyes then and whispered, “You won't because I'm asking you not to do it. Don't bind us together, Colonel.” 

Everett lifted himself off Rush. “Good to know that you've got such trust in me.” 

He turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling, listening to Rush's rapid breathing. His boxers had pooled around one ankle and he pulled them back up. “Calm down. We'll do what you said we should. From now on we'll just do platonic touching, no kissing, no sex, nothing that would make that bond come alive. We''ll starve out the need, just enough touching so that you – and me, but mostly you – aren't climbing the walls.”

Rolling out of bed, Everett peeled back the comforter exposing where they'd piled their clothes to keep them warm and quickly dressed, pulling on his uniform pants over his boxers, then two long-sleeved shirts, his regular black jacket and an extra-large BDU jacket over that. He stamped his feet, still with socks on, into his boots.

Rush watched him, still under the rest of the blankets. Everett's anger melted away. He shouldn't have been so rough on Rush, but saying he'd prefer those horrendous flashbacks of being tortured over feeling attracted to Everett had pissed him off royally.

Anyway, it was Rush who had made the first move under the covers tonight, from just harmless cuddling to letting his knee rub purposefully against Everett's dick. 

He was going to have to protect Rush from the man's own impulses to initiate sex with Everett until this thing was done. 

It had been clear to Everett after they'd finally stopped kissing in the stasis pod, and had stumbled down the steps to the corridor, that things had changed between them.

He craved Rush like a lush craved the bottle. And Rush, he had it worse. He was all hands and lips and frantic touching. They'd started having sex right there in the corridor, but the cold temperature had finally diverted them from kissing and sticking their hands down each other's pants. Once they'd stopped touching each other the implications of what they'd been doing had slammed into them.

As they shivered and dressed in the clothes they'd left by the pod three years ago, Rush started techno-babbling, going on about dopamine and other neurotransmitters putting them in snych with each other and the pod's life support feeding that back to them in a loop between him, Rush, and the Ancient tech that interacted with brain waves. 

It had allowed them to survive, now they had to deal with the consequences.

They'd agreed to break the bond that was already in the first stages, Rush frantic in a dazed, vague manner. It was almost as if Rush had been drunk. He supposed he'd been in a similar state; everything he'd done seemed to be in slow motion. 

It was the logical thing to do, and Rush was right, this wasn't real between them. Rush was so goddamn independent, never wanting anyone to help him. Hell, it had taken forever to get him to accept the science team's assistance, but it was crystal clear to Everett that Rush needed him to get out of this mess. 

He grabbed Rush's biceps and hauled him out from under the covers, Rush tripping as his feet hit the floor. Everett steadied him. Rush's hair was a mess and he looked debauched, standing in just his tattered boxers. The cold pebbled up his nipples and Everett swallowed hard. Then he got with the program and shoved the craving to touch and caress Rush down hard. Everett gently shook him and then let him go.

“Hey, Ace. Quit daydreaming and get dressed. We've got a general to outsmart.”

* * * 

He was ready for the knock when it came, Rush hiding in the bathroom. 

He slapped the door control, curious to find out what was so important that Telford had to say to Rush, but not necessarily involve the commander of this mission.

And it was his mission, Telford's desire to have his hand at the helm be damned. 

Rush had no idea what Telford wanted. Everett believed him. Rush was too off kilter to convincingly lie to him right now. 

Probably when Rush wasn't such a mess, that little skill-set would return to him. 

He wondered if they had let the bond grow if he would have always been able to tell if Rush was hiding something, or lying to him. 

Maybe that realization had played a part in Rush's turning down the bond. 

The door slid open, Matthew Scott's young face looking down at him. He walked inside a few feet to stand in front of Everett.

“Lieutenant? You need me?” 

Telford shook his head and then put a hand on Everett's shoulder. “Everett, it's David. I don't know how much time I have before I return to Earth. I can't find Rush, and I need to talk to him. Is he here?”

“No. He's not sleeping? And what's going on, David?”

“Something that would fit right in with SG1's mission reports.” Telford looked around the room, taking in the book and blanket on the couch. The neatly made bed.

“What's Rush got to do with it?” 

“Everything. He wasn't in his room, the control interface room or that crazy corridor or the mess. Help me find him, Everett.”

Everett pretended to think for a moment. “He said something about washing up when we left the bridge, but that was a while ago. He couldn't still be there... unless...”

“Unless what?”

Everett smirked. What he was going to say was the absolute truth and he knew that Rush was listening. “That man has no sense of when he's running on no fuel, you know. Sometimes he just falls asleep when he finally sits down. He's done it in in the mess, and more than a few times in the shower room.”

“I know. He can be such a liability.” 

Everett let his smirk drop. He was just teasing Rush, knowing that he was probably fuming in the bathroom, but David had looked disgusted.

He gave into the impulse to defend Rush. “Well, the reason he ends up asleep on the shower room benches or falling face first into his mush is he's exhausted himself pulling our nuts out of the fire. He's the hardest working crewmember on this ship.”

David looked at him strangely. “You know, McKay said that it wasn't a good idea to share stasis pods. That there could be lasting effects. Are you okay?”

“I'm tired, but then I hadn't gotten much sleep before we left the last galaxy. But Rush and I are fine. I'll go with you to check the showers and you can fill me in on what's been happening with you.”

Everett took David's arm and tugged him toward the open door. “So, are you still O'Neill's go to guy for fighting the Lucian Alliance? And, in case you get pulled back to Earth, what do you need Rush for?”

Everett led the way down the corridor, heading for the showers that were the furthest away from his room. As soon as they were out of sight, Rush was going to run to the nearest one. Everett and Telford would check it out next and discover Rush there.

“Everett, I know that Rush lied about what happened on the other Destiny. I need you to get it out of him, if he won't tell me, about what he knows. It's essential.”

“Why?” 

David glanced at him, his eyes serious. “Because instead of the other Rush dying, he ascended.”

Everett stopped walking, shocked. 

“How do you know that?” 

David laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “Because he retook human form and came back to the SGC.” They started walking again, and turned left into a new corridor. 

Puzzled, Everett asked, “Well, can't that Rush tell you what you want to know? I mean, my Rush, er, the one from this timeline, he wasn't with the other Telford when he died.”

David shook his head slowly. “What I'm trying to find out is more than the truth about why my double was killed. And no, I can't just ask the other Rush. He came back as a boy about the age of six, and he's mute. His only memories come from nightmares. Hell, he was only identified as Rush after he'd been there for six months. He couldn't tell us who he was.”

Everett felt his eyebrows go as high as they could. “A kid? With no memories of being Rush?”

“That's right.” David snorted. “And he's a handful. Still has Rush's ability to throw a fit.” 

“David, this sounds personal. Maybe you should let it go,” Everett said, troubled.

“That's not an option,” David replied, stiffly.

“Look, even if the other Rush did have something to do with your double dying, what are you going to do, arrest a six-year-old?” Everett said, skeptically. 

“The IOA doesn't think it's personal,” David said, with a tight smile. “I've been given the go ahead to do whatever's necessary to help Rush regain his memories.”

“Why? Christ, why not help him to forget them instead, if they're bad enough to be considered nightmares. Let him have a second chance to grow up.” Six was so young, Everett thought. How could the kid understand what these adults were asking of him? 

“Everett, stop and think this through. Rush came back to the SGC. To Earth.” David's expression turned disdainful. “Does that sound like the man who has continuously worked to not have to ever come back?”

They stopped at the empty shower room. “There's others,” Everett pointed out. They turned and walked fast back the way they had come.

“I'm sure that Rush came back to warn us about something so big that it overcame his aversion to returning to Earth.” David shot him a rueful smile. “We thought it might have been to tell us Destiny had been destroyed, the crew killed. We didn't know which Rush he was, you see.” 

“Something he might have found out after he was ascended? And how the hell did Rush ascend? It's not like he's anything like Daniel Jackson.” Everett could feel a headache starting. Rush had ascended? After all the lying and hiding things from Everett and the crew he'd done?

“I'm trying to find those things out, Everett.”

“Well,” Everett said, philosophically, “after having the dead return to this ship, I guess that having one of our Rushs ascend isn't the strangest thing to happen to this crew.”

Telford just shot him a look and picked up the pace.

* * *

“There the little bastard is,” Telford muttered and pushed ahead of Everett at a fast clip. Everett made a grab for him when he realized what Telford was going to do, but he wasn't quick enough.

Rush turned when Telford threw open the wide shower door so Everett had a fine view of the startled expression on Rush's face when Telford grabbed him by the upper arms and pulled him, wet and naked, hair soaked, out into the dressing area.

Rush didn't break cover though.

“Lieutenant Scott? What the devil are you doin'?”

Telford shook him, hard, as Rush tried to pull away from him. Telford didn't let go, though. “I want answers from you, Rush. What happened with your twin on the other ship?!”

“Turn him loose, David,” Everett said, pulling on Telford's right wrist. 

Rush started to fight in earnest. “Telford, is it? T'fuck off me, tosser.” His knee came up and David barely deflected it away from his crotch. 

“David! I'm ordering you to let him go!” He could do a chop to Telford's arm, but then Scott didn't deserve that kind of pain. He kept prying at Telford's wrist instead. 

Rush stopped pulling away from Telford and instead surged forward and bent his head over Telford's other hand.

Telford let go with a shove, making Rush stagger backwards. 

“Son-of-a-bitch! He bit me!”

“Stay t'fuck away from me,” Rush snarled, his eyes wild. 

Everett stepped between them, keeping Rush behind him. 

“Calm the hell down, David. You're out of line.”

“It's General Telford, and I'm ordering you to stand aside. I want answers from him.”

“You won't get anything out of him this way. Move back, David. For Christ's sake, let him dry off and get dressed.” He could hear Rush breathing hard. He moved sideways so he could see both of them. 

“There might not be time,” David said, but he seemed to have regained his self control. “Rush, you know a lot more than what you've said about what happened with your twin. You're going to tell us.”

“What?” Rush said, and started shivering. 

Everett wanted to find the towel that Rush must have here somewhere and give it to him, but he figured he'd better keep his eye on Telford. The man had lost it once, he might do so again and attack Rush.

“He ascended, your twin. And he came back to the SGC,” Telford snapped. 

Rush inhaled sharply. “Ascended?” he whispered, and went dead white. 

Everett went to grab his arm, because Rush looked shaky, but instead Rush stumbled backwards, his hands held out in front of him. 

“Rush. C'mon, sit down. Where's the damn towel, your clothes?” Everett asked, looking around. He spotted them on another bench and went to grab them, after shooting a warning look at David.

Taking advantage before he'd even picked Rush's jackets and jeans up, Telford rushed forward, grabbing Rush and spinning him around, restraining him against his chest in a secure hold, Rush's wrists held tightly.

Rush didn't fight him this time.

Everett swore and hurried back, facing them both. Rush was dazed, and shivering still; David looked determined.

He glared at Telford. “David, knock it off, or I'm gonna knock you on your ass. Bring me up on charges of assaulting a superior officer and I'll bring charges that you assaulted a civilian. Let him go.” He was bluffing. Any damage he did to Telford, Scott would have to pay for, and he wanted to avoid hurting him.

Telford ignored him. “He's a kid, Rush. Your double. You came back as a little kid, but I'm not fooled. He can't talk, he claims to have no real memories of being you. But I've seen one of his memories. He was running through Destiny before it fell into the star. He was crying. You disappeared into that ship and you said you couldn't find him. You lied. I know you did. You tell me what really happened, because I've got to figure out what message your twin came back to give us. I'm betting it's not good, if it got you to come back to Earth.”

Rush didn't say anything, he looked... hell he kind of looked like his twin had done when he'd stumbled out of the shuttle. He looked damn close to passing out, too, like his double had done. 

Suddenly Telford blinked and looked confused. 

“Matthew?” Matt nodded and made an even more bewildered face when he realized he was restraining Rush. 

“Sir? Can I let him go? Where's his clothes?”

“Sorry, Lieutenant. Wait a sec.” Everett slid a hand between Rush's arm and Matt's chest, just in case Rush needed help. His skin was cold. “Rush, you with us?” 

Rush said, “I... sorry?”

Everett sighed. Great. Either Rush was experiencing emotional shock or the cold was getting to him, or both. “Yeah, let him go.”

When Matt did so, Rush's knees started to buckle. Everett held him up and Matt got his other side. 

“Whoa!” Matt said. “Sir, I'll grab his clothes if you can take him. The way he's shivering he might be getting hypothermic and sitting on a cold bench won't do him any good.”

Everett shifted so that he got his arm around Rush and leaned the other man against him, taking his weight. “Rush, ah, hell, tell me your name.”

“Why d'a fuck do ye want to know?” Rush slurred.

“Just give me your name and lose the attitude,” Everett said, exasperated.

“Nick.”

“Nick what?” Everett didn't think he'd ever heard Rush call himself anything except his whole name and title, although Camile called him Nicholas sometimes. Everyone else just called him Rush. Sometimes Dr. Rush. 

“Nick Rush,” he mumbled, still shivering. Everett started running his free hand up and down Rush's arm, trying to generate some heat. His skin was still sheened with moisture in a lot of places. 

“Okay. And where are you right now?” Everett asked, as Rush dropped his head against Everett's shoulder.

Rush glanced down and at the walls. “Shipyards? Where's m' tools, m' arc welder?” He said something else but it was undecipherable. 

“I heard; he's hypothermic for sure,” Matt said, dropping Rush's clothes by their feet and starting to briskly dry Rush's hair, then moved on to toweling his chest and arms dry. “Sir, this bite on my hand. Did Rush do that?” Everett winced. Blood was still oozing from the injury.

“Sorry, Lieutenant. Telford was a jackass and grabbed Rush right out of the shower and wouldn't let him go. Rush, he, ah, he gets kind of, well, maybe not exactly panicked, but he doesn't take well to being touched against his will. Telford was too rough on him; he's going to have bruises on his arms and wrists.”

“I'm glad he's okay with you holding him up, then, or this would be a lot harder. Think he might be able to pull his shirts on himself?” Matt picked up the stained white long-sleeved shirt and held it out to Rush.

Rush managed, with a lot of difficulty, and Matt ended up buttoning his jackets for him. He and Everett exchanged reports while they helped Rush dress, and Matt just stopped and stared at Rush for a long moment when Everett explained that the other Rush had ascended.

Rush seemed a little better, but when he was handed the towel so he could dry off his legs, he dropped it instead, and slurred something out that mostly seemed to be the word “fuck” repeated a lot. With heartfelt emotion.

Matt shook his head and picked the towel back up. “He's got the fumbles, mumbles, stumbles and grumbles. Sir, he shouldn't be left alone once we get him fixed up.” 

“Here,” Everett said. “Switch with me.” He could see by the look on Matt's face that he really didn't want to get that close to Rush's groin. “And I'm an old hand about dealing with hypothermia. Probably did first aid for my team, oh, a dozen times, back in my SGC days. I'll keep him with me. You can let Eli know what happened, after you wipe the stone you used clean. I don't want Telford showing back up here anymore tonight.”

Transferring Rush's weight to Matt was a little tricky, but they managed. Rush didn't fight them, thank God. Everett made fairly quick work of drying off Rush's legs and crotch and ass and helping him with his boxers and jeans, Matt staring fixedly at a point on the wall the whole time.

“Let's see if he can walk with help to the bench and we'll get his socks and boots on,” Everett said, picking up Rush's boots, socks stuffed inside. 

Right now, he felt as wornout as the boots he was holding.

He turned them over, curious, and saw that several holes were starting to develop on the sole. His own weren't in much better shape. Maybe the crew should go barefoot whenever possible to save wear and tear on their remaining foot-gear, but the floor decking was always on the cold side. 

Rush managed to lurch over to the bench with just Matt's arm supporting him, and followed Everett's directions to lift his feet so his boots could be pulled on. Everett tied them, though. No way was Rush recovered enough to do that.

They stood Rush up and Everett pulled the other man's arm over his shoulder. “It'll be good for him to walk, warm him up a little. Thanks, Lieutenant. Make sure you disinfect that bite really well. Hopefully, the rest of your shift will be quiet. ”

“I sure hope so. After I go to the stones room, I'm gonna stop by the mess, bring Eli and me some hot paste and tea. I'll make some for you guys, too, leave it on the warmer.” Matt smiled at him ruefully. “I think you're going to have your hands full, sir.”

“Okay, good idea. See you at shift change, Matt.”

Matt left then, after patting Rush on the shoulder. From what Everett had seen for himself, and from what Matt and Greer and James had told him, Matt had found himself more than once looking out for Rush. He'd risked his own life by keeping the gate open by shoving his hand into the event horizon, so that Rush could make it back from the other Destiny as the doomed ship's shields started to fail. 

Matt was a nice kid. He and Chloe deserved each other, and he meant that in the most positive way possible.

“C'mon, Ace. Let's get you fed and watered and put to bed.”

Rush sighed out something that sounded aggrieved, but he obediently moved his feet when Everett started walking them out of the room.

* * *

“Eat your supper, Rush.” Instead of taking his advice, Rush started shivering again.

The other man was still mildly hypothermic, although getting his blood moving by walking at their slow, slow pace to the mess had helped him regain some coherency

The operative word being “some.”

Everett shoved his own bowl of mush across the table, and quickly downed the rest of his hot tea. Stuff reminded him of some of Em's forays into health food stores. This tea wasn't so bad, though. 

He got up and moved right next to Rush, and put his arm around him, hoping it would stop the shivering. 

“If you don't eat that right now, I'm going to spoon feed it to you,” he warned, keeping his tone of voice light.

Rush turned an exhausted glare his way, but he shakily picked up his spoon and started to eat.

Everett quickly finished off his own unappetizing bowl and waited for Rush to get done.

Rush was still shivering. He needed to get them both stripped down and under the covers. 

The shower mist had been cool, so Rush was already partially compromised to the cold even before David had pulled him out into the freezing room. Rush would have been okay if he'd been able to dry off and dress right away, though. 

He waved a hand in front of Rush's face to get his attention. “Why didn't you just pretend to be asleep in the shower room? Why actually take a shower? It left you... vulnerable.” 

“Was there, so why not?” Rush mumbled. “Multi-taskin.' Didn't know Telford was--” He made a circular gesture at his temple with his spoon still in his hand, then dropped the spoon on the table.

He pushed the bowl away, still half full. 

“Oh, no you don't. Eat that. You need the calories and the warmth. And drink your tea before it gets cold.” He sounded like his mother, Everett thought. That was just great. 

“No. 'm done.” 

“God, you're such a stubborn ass. I'm going to pour it down your throat if you don't pick that spoon back up. You're not thinking clearly, Rush. You're going to have to trust me on this.” He tightened his arm around the other man. He didn't want to fight with him; maybe...”

“Okay, let's just do a little test. 104,729. Prime or not prime?” 

Rush sighed. “Not prime.”

“Wrong, Mr. PhD in mathematics.”

“I made a processing error? Me?” Rush slurred, making an incredulous face. 

“You're a little hypothermic, Rush. It affects your judgment, your ability to think, so will you for once in your life just trust me? Eat your food and let's go back to bed.”

“Are ye sure 'm... what ye said?” Rush stumbled through the words.

“Yes.” He picked up Rush's spoon and scooped up the mush. “Here. Eat this crap.”

Rush took it from him with another one of those aggravated sighs, but he cooperated.

He even cooperated when they got back to the room, letting Everett help him with buttons and the zipper on his jeans so he could navigate in the bathroom.

Everett shoved Rush under the covers as soon as he had him stripped naked. He debated leaving on his boxers, but skin to skin was better for warming the other man back up.

He took care of his own needs quickly, brushed his teeth, soaked a washcloth with the shower solution and wiped his skin clean after he stripped off his jacket and uniform.

To his surprise, Rush was still awake when he got into bed. The shivering hadn't stopped yet. 

“Colonel? 'M cold,” Rush mumbled.

“I know, Nicholas. I'm gonna warm you up. Try to go to sleep.” He rolled Rush to his side and slid his arm under him, put his other arm over him and grasped his hands in his own. They were ice cold. Rush's entire body was chilled, but it wouldn't be long before Everett's body heat built up under the covers and thawed the other man out. 

He pressed himself against Rush, and put a leg over him. Rush couldn't move now, even if he wanted to, but he kept still and a relieved sigh escaped him.

This way, he was in control and Rush couldn't initiate anything between them. Everett would keep to their agreement and he'd make sure Rush didn't start something again. 

He lay there drowsing for a while, Rush a pleasant weight against him, until he thought of something Telford had said to him three years ago when he'd last used the stones and reported in to O'Neill. 

David had said that Rush never let anybody protect him. But he'd trusted Everett to protect him and not rape him. He'd conceded that Everett needed to make the decisions for him tonight. 

This was... progress?

“Nicholas, you awake?” he said softly.

“No,” Rush breathed out.

“Hey. I'm sorry. About earlier, when I was angry with you,” Everett offered tentatively. 

“An' what was it I did, then?” Rush asked sleepily, but Everett could tell he was already much better, not slurring his words this time.

“Saying you'd rather be tortured by the Nakai than be with me.” Somehow it was much easier to say this to the back of Rush's head than if he was looking into those dark eyes.

“Ah. I can fight against them. I can keep them out of m' head. But if I let you in... I don't think I can do that again.”

The hands he was holding squeezed his own in a gesture of reassurance or comfort or apology, he didn't know. 

“I loved them an' I hurt them... 'm poison, ye should be glad we're no bound to each other.”

“Yeah. I'm glad. Go to sleep, Rush.”

Rush sighed despondently, but Everett didn't respond.

There was silence between them, just the sound of their slow breathing. Everett was on the cusp of sleep, where time seems to flow at its own pace. 

The words, wistful and bleak, were whispered into the quiet as he drifted away. “Tha mi duilich, Everett. Tha mi duilich.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eli's use of the term "Frakking" is from Battle Star Galactica. 
> 
> I'm crediting Destiny001 for the term "pots" for the stasis pods. She used it in a comment and I just love it.
> 
>  
> 
> [Enemy Mine, a scifi story and film about a Human and a Drac, enemies who become family to each other.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_Mine_\(film\))
> 
>  
> 
> “Tha mi duilich (I am sorry.) Gaidhlig (Scots Gaelic)


	9. Coercion and Persuasion

**Communications Lab, Homeworld Command**

As soon as the disorientation from melding his own consciousness with his real body dissipated, David snapped, “I'm going back,” and reached for the stone to place it on the board.

A hand came down on his shoulder. “What's your hurry?”

David twisted in the chair and looked up at General O'Neill. Damn. He must have walked Scott back to the lab.

“Sir, I was talking to Rush about some vital information.”

O'Neill raised an eyebrow. “Oh, were you? Lieutenant Scott said they asked whoever switched with them to remain in the stones room. Their reasons were sound.”

“It was imperative that I speak to Rush. It still is. I'm going back. Scott won't have had time to clear his stone yet.”

“You know, it's been a while since I was on Destiny. If it's so important I'll pop up there. You've been here all day; you're dismissed.” O'Neill gave David his snarky, half-way grin and lifted his hand towards the stone.

David flashed on how he had left Rush, held tightly against Scott's body, restraining him. How it would be obvious that he'd pulled Rush out of the shower since he was naked and soaking wet. 

If O'Neill switched...

“That's not necessary, sir. I do have another source for the information.”

O'Neill let his hand hover over the stone. “You're sure? Because I don't mind seeing for myself why you thought it necessary to go against Young's wishes.”

David held his hands out in a conciliatory gesture.“No need, sir. Colonel Young's been apprised of the situation; maybe he can get the truth out of Rush.”

“We'll chat again, General Telford. Soon. Tomorrow afternoon works for me. And bring Rush Jr with you. I promised some folks I'm very fond of that I'd keep an eye on him.”

“Sir? Safehouse protocol--”

“Means squat to me. But I'm not asking you to divulge where you've stashed him. Bring him in. That's an order, General Telford. The IOA have agreed to have some oversight about your little project, and you're looking at part of it.”

Damn. O'Neill knew where a lot of bodies were buried. And if he hadn't blackmailed IOA higher-ups, then maybe he'd called in other favors. Perhaps from Richard Woolsey, since O'Neill had kept Woolsey alive when Atlantis had been attacked.

Actually...

“I think that's a good idea, sir. Rush knows you, so maybe seeing you will jar something loose from his memories.”

O'Neill looked doubtful. “He knew Daniel a lot better. Seeing him this time around didn't cause his memory to return. Or meeting Landry again, for that matter.” 

David stood up. “Rush liked Dr. Jackson, though, and he likes him now. He and Landry used to clash a lot, and apparently a part of him remembers that because he never warmed up to Landry when he returned.”

“Rush and I weren't pals, David, so I guess we'll see. Now beat it. I suspect you've done enough for today.” He put a twist into his words in typical O'Neill style. It was clear enough to David what O'Neill thought of his mission goals. 

He couldn't stop the mission, though. 

O'Neill gave him a sharp look, which contrasted with his casual pose, looking comfortable in the BDUs O'Neill preferred over his dress uniform. He said, “You know, I've seen some pretty whacky stuff in my time. I get it that Rush might be an adult in a kid's body or a kid with some adult memories. It doesn't really matter; I'm holding you personally responsible for his well-being.”

“You must see how important it is to help him tell us why he returned, sir.” He looked intently at O'Neill, wondering if he could convince him to be an ally.

“I do. And you're good, David; you've maneuvered things so he's in your custody.”

O'Neill stepped closer. “Take very good care of him. _Very good care._ ” 

“Sir.” 

“Dismissed. And I'm giving orders that you're not to be allowed back on the stones until I've talked with Colonel Young, and that won't be for a week, at his request. After that, we'll see.”

He nodded at O'Neill and left, not letting his annoyance that O'Neill would be looking over his shoulder show on his face.

He'd just have to work harder at cracking Rush open so all his secrets would spill out. 

 

* * * 

Rush was asleep when he returned to the safehouse. The mess on the floor was untouched. 

He wasn't wearing the memory device either. 

This was unacceptable. 

He stared down at Rush, thinking about how to get him to be cooperative. Obviously, the things his team had tried had failed. 

Rush's breath hitched in a post crying shudder, but he didn't wake up.

David turned to his team, who were standing off to the side of Rush's bed. “You followed my instructions? He wasn't given anything to eat? I can see he refused to clean up his mess.”

Drugov glanced at the two scientists who were there to study Rush, and who were busy not making eye contact with David, and then stepped up the plate. “No, sir. However, he was given water to drink. That's not negotiable, sir. Missing a meal won't affect him that much, but becoming dehydrated is a medical concern.”

David looked back down at Rush. “Did he talk to you?”

“Not really,” Drugov said. “I gave him a low dose of Benadryl to calm him down. He just kept asking for his parents to come and get him. The Silers. He was worried about Sergeant Siler; I said he was okay. He also wanted SG1.”

David frowned at his team, realizing by the language Drugov used that he was maybe subconsciously still thinking of Rush as a child. “Those people are not his parents. His parents died a long time ago. Don't refer to the Silers as his parents to him.” 

“Yes, sir,” Drugov said, going to parade rest.

David nodded at him. “Did you show him the video from his dream?”

“Yes,” Drugov said, “but from the expression on his face it just confused him. He wouldn't write down anything about it.”

“Okay. I'll take it from here,” David said. “You two can leave, get some sleep,” he told the scientists. “Drugov, go and make him something to eat.”

It was time to lay down the law to Rush. He wasn't surprised that he'd had such a hysterical fit. That ability was never too far below the fake politeness Rush tended to use. When he'd been on Destiny before, Volker had described to him how Rush had finally had a meltdown when the ship had gone dark to save power, after biting off everyone's head who tried to help him or even just talk to him. He'd actually passed out and then slept for a lot of hours. Exhaustion and withdrawal, according to TJ, Volker had said.

Volker had still been smarting about Rush spurning his help, that was obvious. After venting, though, the scientist had looked like he regretted talking to David. 

Brody wouldn't say anything negative about Rush, and Park had excuse after excuse for Rush's less charming habits and behaviors, or she would mention Rush's achievements in an admiring tone. 

David didn't understand their reluctance to condemn Rush's behavior and attitude. The man was an asshole, pure and simple. He'd sacrifice them in a heartbeat without a tear, if it suited his needs. 

Eli Wallace wouldn't talk plainly to him either, not even when he'd stroked the kid's ego by playing up how impressed everyone had been with his solving the ninth chevron problem Rush couldn't. Eli had finally challenged him about the questions he'd been asking the science team about Rush's performance.

Eli had crossed his arms across his grubby gray sweatshirt when David had asked him about Rush dialing Destiny from Icarus. “So, this chain of command thing. You're not in charge of Rush. If anybody is, it would be Colonel Young, so if Colonel Young wants to discuss the lead scientist of Destiny with me, or with the science team, then fine. But it sounds to me like you've got something against Rush. Don't think I haven't noticed the way you talk trash about him. So, I can't help you, Colonel.”

“He's going to get all of you killed.”

“Oh, really. I've run the figures your team came up with for dialing within the star. If it hadn't been stopped we would have blown up.” Eli widened his eyes at David in an obnoxious manner and as he spoke he ticked off his points by holding up each new finger. “Let's see. Rush figured out how to bring the shuttle back after we went through the first star, saving all those people on it, and he cracked the master code. He volunteered to look for me and Greer and Chloe and Matt when Destiny had to leave us behind. He saved Chloe from the Nakai, and he defused the bomb on Lisa's back.”

Eli made a balancing motion with his two hands and then let his right had drop much lower than the left one. “I think this conversation is finished, don't you? The math doesn't lie, Colonel Telford. Rush might be a jerk, but he's kind of our jerk? We need him.” 

“He caused the shuttle to crash, killing Sergeant Riley. He's dangerous,” David countered.

“That was an accident.” But Eli had sounded a little unsure.

“No, it wasn't. It was his mistake,” David had insisted.

“Maybe,” Eli admitted. “But it wasn't intentional. He did warn Matt about the turbulence; after that, it was just a judgment call.”

“I could find you someone better, much better, to take his place.” David had several candidates in mind, with McKay at the top of the list.

Eli had looked dubious. “If and when a stable wormhole can be established. Even if we wanted Rush gone, that's not happening anytime soon, right?”

“I want to be prepared when it does happen, and you can help by letting Homeworld Command and the IOA know the truth about Rush.” David put a friendly hand on Eli's shoulder. “He stranded you people out here; he should be taken off this ship and made to face the consequences of doing that.”

Eli slid away from him. “You sound like Chloe's mom. And speaking of Chloe, I wouldn't bother asking her to diss Rush. They're really tight.”

“Is he sleeping with her?” David asked fast, looking for a telling reaction on Eli's face.

Eli rolled his eyes. “No. I mean, get real. Chloe's in love with Matt. They'll probably get married and have a dozen kids.”

“But they're tight, her and Rush.”

Eli nodded. “I think they're like family. They're not really buddies; except for doing math they don't hang out or do fun stuff like watch movies, but they look out for each other and they care about the other one. She can talk to Rush, Chloe said, about things that she can't explain to me or Matt. He's the same with her, she told me. I guess being tortured by aliens is a great way to bring people together. And I gotta go. Got a bridge shift to get to.”

Eli walked off and David thought about how much Mrs. Armstrong must hate that the man who caused the death of her husband was considered family by her daughter. 

Rush must have seen his chance to make an ally out of Chloe; her family, her real family, was very influential and wealthy. Rush was such a bastard; that must have been his reason for saving the girl. A cost benefit ratio that made the risk of finding her on the Nakai ship worth taking.

Something of the same instinct must have been working when he attached himself to Sergeant Siler upon returning to Earth. He was weak now, and he needed protectors. So he played the cute, helpless kid card to get himself adopted. 

But David could turn that on him. Rush wanted the Silers to take him in, well, that gave him some leverage on Rush.

In the bed, Rush shook with another one of those hitching breaths. David remembered doing that as a kid after his grandfather's funeral. He hadn't been able to stop crying for a long time, and when he did stop, he'd gone to sleep with his breath stuttering like that every so often.

He scowled. Even he wasn't altogether immune to seeing Rush as a child. He was really going to have to watch himself and not slip up. 

He sat on the edge of Rush's bed and gently shook him. This was a child's body, after all, and would bruise easily. He suspected that adult Rush was going to have bruises in the shape of David's, well actually, Scott's fingers on the man's biceps and around his wrists. He didn't care about that. Rush himself wouldn't make a fuss about a few marks, but Everett might bring a complaint up to O'Neill. With David's connections, though, nothing would happen. 

Too bad that he'd had to enlist Everett's help to find the man. It would have been better if he could have talked privately with Rush on Destiny. Alone with him he would have pushed him harder, see if that would have brought the answers he craved. If there was one thing that his time with the Lucian Alliance had shown him, it was the power of physically dominating someone to induce compliance; Rush being naked with David manhandling him would have been the cherry on top, if they'd had privacy. 

If he was a real bastard, he'd have made Rush think he was going to rape him unless he finally told the truth.

Well. Maybe he was that much of a son-of-a-bitch, but he wouldn't have gone through with it. Besides, if Rush had told the truth three years ago when he'd first been asked about what happened on the other Destiny and with his twin, then David wouldn't have had to interrogate him now. Once again, Rush was to blame. He'd brought any sore arms and wrists on himself. 

On the bed, the boy stirred, but his eyes were still shut. This version of Rush had lighter colored hair than the one he'd left on the ship, but his eyelashes made the same dark curves. He remembered that from when Rush had been in a coma on Destiny, and David had gone down to the infirmary to see for himself Rush's condition. He'd wanted to question him about how the neural interface chair had worked before David had to return to Earth. He'd been using Everett's body that time and had still been talking to TJ when Everett had returned.

David shook Rush again, pulled the blankets away and sat him up in the bed. 

Rush tried to collapse back down, but David held onto him. “Wake up, Rush.”

Rush yawned and rubbed at his closed eyes with his fists. David wondered, and not for the first time, how had _Rush_ , of all people, ascended. Someone like Daniel Jackson, he could understand. Jackson was a moral compass for the entire stargate program. But Rush? 

If Rush had managed to do it, then maybe when the time was right, David could also pull it off. But Rush was such a secretive bastard that he'd probably keep his magic trick to himself, unless he could be forced to share it.

Rush sleepily opened his eyes, blinking, and still yawning. His temper tantrum had worn him out, no doubt, and probably he wasn't totally recovered from using his telekinesis and healing ability. 

Rush had helped Siler; he needed Siler, but why had Rush healed David, too? 

Well. That question could wait. 

“Are you awake enough to understand me?” David asked, shifting on the bed so that Rush could look him in the eyes.

Rush slowly nodded, his breathing picking up.

“I'm not going to hurt you,” he said. While he was tempted to give Rush a spanking for not doing as he was told about cleaning up, he wouldn't for two reasons. One, he didn't want to do anything that would reinforce Rush thinking of himself as a child; and two, using corporal punishment could be seen as abusive by the IOA. 

David said firmly, “We need to talk. Do you know why you're here, with me and the team, in this house?”

Rush shook his head.

“That's your fault.” David said, his tone of voice severe. “It would have been explained to you when you woke up today but instead you chose to throw a fit.” 

Rush was looking at him with such wide eyes. Good. He was paying attention.

David began. “Your name is Nicholas Rush. You were a college professor in mathematics before you joined stargate command. People called you Doctor Rush. There's pictures here of you as a grown man, and the places where you lived. I want you to study them. You grew up in Scotland, in a city called Glasgow. You had a wife, Gloria, but she died years ago.”

He stopped. Rush was looking confused. “You ascended three years ago, became something without a body anymore, just pure energy. Why, we don't know. But you took human form again six months ago, and came through the stargate. You came back as a little boy, the way you are now. Those nightmares you have of monsters are your memories from when you were an adult. You were taken by those blue-skinned aliens that you draw all the time and you were tortured, hurt, by them.”

Rush was signing, but David held his hand up. “Wait here. I don't read sign language.” He went to a desk in the corner and brought back a notebook and a pen. Sitting down again on the bed, he handed it to Rush and said, “I'm sure you've got questions.”

Rush bent over the notebook, the pen held tightly in his hand. David waited, wondering if any of what he was saying was getting through to Rush.

Finally, Rush handed him the notebook. He'd written the words awkwardly in block printing. So, Rush's fine motor control wasn't that good. 

He'd written, “My name is Malin. I want my mama and daddy. I do not know anything about being a doctor. Please let me go.”

David sighed. He supposed it would have been too easy if Rush had accepted the truth right off the bat. 

“You made yourself forget, or weren't allowed to remember being Doctor Rush. But you are him. And you came back to the SGC to give us a message. A very important one that right now you can't remember. I'm going to help you remember it, and that means you have to wear the memory device on your head and not take it off. You're also going to follow the rules here and not throw any more temper tantrums.”

Rush's bottom lip was sticking out and a mulish expression had settled on his face. 

David was ready to put a stop to Rush acting like a brat. “Rush, do you know what jails and prisons are?”

The change of topic made Rush cock his head and look at him, surprised. 

“Do you know about them? That people who do bad things get sent there to be punished?” 

He felt like he was being too simplistic with his language with Rush, like he was talking to an actual child. But it was late, Rush was sleepy and tired and he himself was pretty bushed. Better to use simple language for now; Rush hadn't even understood English when he'd first come through the gate. He could get a better feel for Rush's understanding of vocabulary later.

Rush nodded.

He spoke very slowly and clearly, so Rush would get every word. “If you don't do as I say, and do as the team says, then Sergeant Siler will go to prison. He assaulted me, hit me, and he broke the rules. He did that for you. It's your fault he's in trouble. But if you do what you're told I won't press charges.”

David stood up, and pulled Rush out of the bed, standing him on bare feet. Somebody had dressed him in a black T-shirt to sleep in, and it almost touched the ground.

Rush looked up at him, leaning his head back. His bottom lip was wobbling, and his eyes were wet.

“Don't you start crying crocodile tears,” David said, not willing to put up with any bullshit. “It won't have any effect on me except to annoy me. Do you understand what I said? I won't let Sergeant Siler go to prison, to be behind bars and not be able to go home to his family, or stop him from working at the SGC as long as you behave yourself.”

Tears rolled down Rush's cheek, but he wiped them off with the back of his hands. He nodded, looking at David. 

“So, you'll do what I tell you, and what the team tells you?” David said, feeling vindicated that he'd chosen the right approach.

Rush nodded again, and wrapped his arms around himself. 

“Okay. So I want you to pick this mess up, and then you're going to let us put the memory device back on your head. Then I want you to eat and go to sleep. You have a problem doing any of that?”

Rush signed something, but when David raised his eyebrows at him, he shook his head, and walked over to the empty container of Legos, picked it up and rapidly started filling it with the scattered blocks on the floor. 

He'd have loved to turn Rush over to Drugov, now that the little shit was being cooperative, but it would make a better impression if he finished this up himself. 

So he watched, arms crossed over his chest, as Rush sorted through the art supplies on the floor, and put everything back on the shelves. He worked fast, his movements efficient and brisk, just like he had always done for as long as David had known him. 

He'd knocked down a pole lamp that was twice as tall as he was, and as he tried to right it, it kept slipping. David started to walk over, to give him a hand, but stopped, curious when Rush dragged the wooden desk chair over next to the lamp. 

Rush lifted the lamp up to the back of the chair and let it rest there while he clambered up to stand on the seat of the chair. He then lifted the lamp up until it stood straight again. 

David smiled at that, despite himself. Rush had always been a clever little bastard. And independent. He hadn't even looked at David to see if he would help him.

Rush jumped down and pushed the chair back to the desk. He looked the room over, a closed fist under his chin, another one of Rush's gestures he remembered him making during their missions together. Rush spotted a stray Lego and dashed over to pick it up and put it away. 

Then he looked at David inquiringly. 

“It's fine. Don't make any more messes like that, understand?”

Rush nodded, and pointed to his temple. 

“Airman Drugov will put it on. He's in the kitchen.”

Rush ran into the kitchen, and again, David was reminded of Rush's habit of doing that. He was always trotting along at a fast clip to places he was going, sometimes flat-out running. 

It was fascinating, in a way, to see that these gestures and habits had remained with Rush, even after he descended.

He followed Rush into the kitchen. Rush had grabbed Drugov's hand and was trying to drag him towards the door. 

“Sir?” Drugov said. “I think he wants the memory device back on.”

“I told him he had to wear it,” David said, stifling a yawn. “Go get your supplies. You can do it here, then feed him and put him back to bed. I'm going to get some shut-eye. Wake me up if he has any relevant memories.”

He snapped his fingers to get Rush's attention. Rush stopped tugging at Drugov and his eyes flicked to David's.

“Go sit down at the table, and wait. And Rush. We're not keeping you here to hurt you. This is something you would want us to do.”

That bewildered stare answered him but Rush obediently let go of Drugov and followed David's instructions.

He sat on a kitchen chair and then drew his knees up so that they were tucked under his chin and wrapped his arms around his legs. He rocked himself slightly forwards and backwards.

David stared at Rush, wondering what was hidden in that small head, until Drugov returned, then went to his quarters and thankfully fell into bed.

Sleep eluded him, though, so he returned to his last meditation visualization and watched as the last of the colorful maple leaves drifted down from the branches. 

By the time the branches were bare, he was able to slip into welcome sleep.

**Destiny. Colonel Young's quarters**

 

Everett opened his eyes. He was warm and comfortable and... Rush was still in his bed. 

They'd shifted in their sleep. Everett had one arm slung loosely over Rush's chest now but Rush had tangled his fingers with Everett's and was still on his side, his back to Everett. He could feel the slow rise and fall of Rush's chest, and he was warm under Everett's arm.

He'd like to let Rush sleep, but he needed to check the time; carefully pulling his hand free, Everett leaned over to grab his watch from the bedside table.

They had about two hours before relieving Scott and Eli. He could let Rush rest a little longer. 

He brought the watch back with him and put it on top of the comforter where he could easily see it. 

Should he wrap an arm around Rush again? It felt good to hold him, and he wasn't going to lie to himself. It wasn't just about the effects of this aborted bond. It just felt nice to be close to another person, to be skin to skin with them. 

He slid his arm around Rush deciding that this was going to be another one of those fleeting things with the other man. Something kind of primal within Everett felt such a sense of satisfaction to have Rush – Nicholas – right next to him. At least, he thought, grinning a little, he knew exactly where Rush was when he was holding him like this, or kissing any rational thoughts out of his head.

There wouldn't be any more kissing, though. 

Everett listened to Rush breathing slowly, and thought about what Telford had told them. The other Rush had ascended. Descended. Was a little boy with no clear memories of his former life. 

Was Telford correct, that Rush had returned to Earth to warn them about something? That the man in his bed right now knew more than he had told them about what had happened to his twin?

Everett shouldn't have let the other timeline Rush return to the doomed Destiny. He'd let both the Rushs overrule his better judgment. The other Rush had been traumatized, cracked open, his emotions so raw, so hurt. He'd been grief stricken, exhausted. Everett should have asked TJ to give him a sedative and make him sleep twelve hours, but no, he'd let the other Rush convince him to make use of him, citing that he knew the damaged areas of the ship best, and his Rush had nodded in agreement. 

Note to self: New policy concerning Doctor Nicholas Rush: Since the man doesn't know how to take care of himself, let alone any doubles, he does not get the final vote on anything relating to his own well-being or this boy's welfare. 

Rush would fight him on that, but Everett had plenty of data to back up his policy. The idiot should have gone to TJ as soon as he started feeling like crap after they'd landed on Destiny. He should have known he couldn't work like he had without any sleep. Everett was pretty sure the sleep debt that had finally come due had started way before dialing the ninth chevron. He suspected Rush'd had weeks of not enough sleep while working on Icarus.

He wondered if any of the science team had graphed out Rush's moods and if they corresponded to lack of sleep. Just from his own observation, if Rush was cranky and short with people, or ignored them, he usually looked tired. 

Rush could be polite. He called people by their titles a lot, and Everett had heard him say thank you to Becker for bringing a bowl of mush to him. None of the civilian or military women on board – or men, for that matter – had ever complained that he'd made them feel uncomfortable, or had made any advances. He didn't flirt; most people assumed he just wasn't interested in a relationship or in sex. 

Well... Everett knew that last part wasn't true. But Rush wasn't a flirt. If they had decided to keep this bond, it might have been fun to see if he could get Rush flustered by teasing and flirting with him. 

Rush had loved Doctor Perry. God, the look on the other man's face when she'd been killed proved that to him. He'd bet his last stick of gum that Amanda Perry had to take the initiative to make the change from friends to lovers, though. The stones had made things awkward, he'd gathered from Eli and Camile. It'd been a weird situation afterwards, to upload her consciousness into the ship. And Rush had been goddamn reckless when he'd joined her in the simulation.

Rush was usually a pragmatic guy, but uploading his own mind into the computer was the opposite of being pragmatic. The pragmatic approach would have been to let her go, not do what he'd done. 

Not that anybody had gotten a word out of him about what actually had happened in that simulation, except for Rush's one sentence that she couldn't change the parameters and release him. He refused to say what the parameters were, or what the simulation was about.

Eli had dropped enough hints, however, that he and the science team and TJ had figured out that in the simulation Rush and Doctor Perry would have had the sensation of touching each other. 

Yeah. Pragmatic, his ass. Lonely, touch-starved, and desperate was more like it. Rush had run to the neural interface chair to be with Amanda Perry, practically knocking over Chloe and blowing off the meeting about McKay's solution to dial in to Destiny. Everett had thought initially that might be because he was feeling sore that McKay had improved upon his work, but Eli was sure Rush hadn't cared about that. He'd cared about seeing the one person that he'd trusted with his secrets.

He'd almost died because of that need. 

Everett dropped a kiss on the back of Rush's neck, pushing aside Rush's dark brown hair. Rush wasn't awake enough to notice, so Everett indulged himself. Son-of-a-bitch had almost died. 

Maybe Rush wouldn't let himself get close to another person, to love anybody anymore. That was his choice, but he couldn't continue to not be a part of this ship's community. They were all stuck out here together and needed to be able to get along. It would improve efficiency and morale. And he hadn't forgotten what he'd learned about Rush before they doubled up in the stasis pod. Those beatings by that vigilante group had to stop.

While the ship was quiet, while he didn't have a million demands on his time, he was going to come up with a plan to get Rush more involved with the other people on this ship. He'd talk to Scott and Eli and later pull in Camile and Chloe and TJ for input.

Getting Rush to cooperate, though... that was gonna be a lot of work.

He moved a little so that he was spooning Rush, and closed his eyes. Rush's hair was soft and smelled good; he doubted that once Rush was awake and not freezing any more that he would let them be this close.

So he'd take what he could now. From what Rush had said, the more they denied what the bond needed to flourish, the more they'd go back to their previous feelings about each other. 

Rush had trembled from the cold and maybe from desire as he'd pulled on his shirts after they'd broken apart in the stasis corridor. “Colonel,” he'd said, rubbing his arms, “what the pod d-did to us, it's like we're drugged right now. I can hardly think straight, and I don't think you're doing too well with that either.” He had stumbled over some of his words, and Rush just didn't do that. “Bloody neurotransmitters... are probably all stirred up, but if we don't keep doing, ah, what we were doing... I think we'll go back to normal.”

“Normal.” And yeah, he was finding it difficult to listen to Rush talking when he wanted to kiss him silent again.

“Aye. You won't be able to stand me again, and kissing me or touching me will be the last damn thing you'd want to do.” 

Everett stepped closer to him, but Rush stepped back. Everett shrugged. “Maybe normal's not that great, then. What's wrong with being together? Not gonna lie. I like kissing you. Fucking you sounds even better.”

Rush made a desperate sound and clenched his fists. “Don't, don't say such things to me. I'm no made of stone. But this isn't some enchantment where we'd live happily ever after. This is artificial; it's going to wear off, but if that link between us was made, then it'd be pure hell for us to be connected.”

“Nicholas, maybe--” he'd interrupted, but Rush just talked over him, his words still slow, like it was difficult for him to form the consonants and vowels, but his eyes and hands had been frantic. He'd pushed a shaky hand through his hair a dozen times already. 

“Try to remember that you hate me, alright? And we should only touch enough to keep from going mad. Not sexual touching, mind you. I think we must raise oxytocin levels but decrease dopamine; it's a workaround, Colonel. I'm no bloody biologist, but I think we can fix this, if we just use our heads.” 

So they'd worked out a plan. Rush was probably right. These... softer feelings he been having for Rush, they would evaporate after a while.

Still.

He whispered into Rush's hair, “I've felt a lot of things about you, Nicholas, but not hate.”

Rush shifted a little, then made a sleepy contented sound and settled again.

Everett added softly, compelled to be honest, “Well, maybe I did after I learned about the shuttle. But I let it go while I was beating the shit out of you.”

Rush cracked his eyes open and said, “Wha?” sleep swallowing down the rest of his words.

“I don't hate you, Rush.”

“Colonel?” Rush yawned, still half asleep and relaxed against him.

Everett asked him, before he was really awake, “What happened when you found your twin on the other ship?” 

Telford was right about this at least. When Rush had crashed to his knees after returning with Scott from the other Destiny, he'd lied when he answered Young's questions. Young knew he had but hadn't seen much point in calling Rush on it. 

But now, it was time to hear the truth.

“Was an accident,” Rush mumbled, not moving out of Everett's embrace.

“What was an accident?” Everett asked quietly. 

“Colonel Telford dyin'. Was an accident, but nobody would believe that.”

“Did you believe him?”

“Aye. He didn't sabotage the connection to Earth. Said he told the truth to us, Colonel.”

“So you weren't sure his story wasn't a pack of lies.”

“I've had to tell lies before, so I did wonder.” Rush started to stretch and move against Everett's arm.

Everett tightened his arm around him in response. Rush made an annoyed sound, but turned so that he was facing Everett. “What are ye doin' Colonel? We've had the night to touch so we should be fine for a while.”

“You can get up later. Right now, I want you to keep telling me about what happened when you found your twin.”

“Well, let me up so I can get dressed first.” Rush pushed up against the arm Everett tightened again around him.

“No. I want you right here, right against me. Let's just say I think it's more conducive to hearing the truth. Besides, you owe me for last night.”

“I do not.” But Rush relaxed under his arm.

“I got you to eat and drink.”

“I'd hardly have starved,” Rush answered dismissively.

“I unzipped your jeans when you couldn't manage it.”

Rush blushing was interesting. Why would that make him feel mortified, or shy, after the other things they'd indulged in? Rush said, after a moment. “You'd have done the same for any of the crew.”

“Thank you. Yes, I would have. You let me because you trusted me last night. I'm asking you to trust me now. Tell me everything that happened on that ship with the other Rush.”

Rush let out an aggrieved sigh. Everett smiled. He was starting to understand that sound meant Rush was going to give in. 

“I had to find him. I had to know. I left Lieutenant Scott and Colonel Telford's body and ran to the neural interface room. It was where I would have gone, in his place. He was there.”

Rush stopped and Everett gave him a little time. Then he prompted, “What was he doing?”

“Ah. He was... upset. He told me what I explained to you already. Telford's death was an accident and he didn't fuck up the gate. There was no sabotage. He knew nobody would believe him about Colonel Telford. He wanted...”

“He wanted what? Why didn't he come back with you? Why didn't you make him?”

“I know myself, Colonel. He'd made up his mind to do it and I respected his decision. I couldn't have dragged him against his will, and there was no time to argue. The ship was minutes away from the shields failing.”

“He wanted to die?”

“Yes,” Rush whispered. “He'd lost everything.”

“I never should have let him go there,” Everett said regretfully. “I wish he had come back. He could have made a life for himself, here with you. With us.” 

Rush shook his head. “As a prisoner? Telford was dead and he knew he'd be held responsible. And the crew from the earlier timeline – he thought they'd died. He thought, he thought it was his fault.”

“His fault? You said he didn't--”

“No, no,” Rush said softly, and damn, the man's emotions were written all over his face. Sadness, guilt. Regret. “He didn't screw them over. He just failed to save them. He should have saved them. He should have convinced them not to try it, and when then went anyway, he should have gotten the wormhole to stabilize. He thought he had, but when no one made it to Earth, except Colonel Telford... Whatever happened to the Telford who died, my twin felt guilty. It tipped the balance and he decided to stay and go into the star. But he wanted to find out first--”

“He told you all this?” Everett asked.

“No. There wasn't time. But I knew him. Me. It's what I would have thought, if those things had happened to me.” Rush pushed back the hair that was falling into his eyes, and this time, this time Everett thought he was being honest with him. But why had Rush kept all of this a secret? And what had happened between Rush's twin and Telford?

David Telford was single-minded He was excellent at hiding his true feelings, whether undercover or brainwashed. He was damn good at strategy and could play a long game, but he could also strike like a cobra when an opportunity came up And for some reason, he'd been targeting Rush long before they came to Destiny. For one thing, Everett knew Telford had argued against including Rush on the expedition. The man with the strongest ATA gene rating besides John Sheppard, and Telford wanted to leave him behind. That had never made sense to Everett. Back then, though, he'd shrugged it off as not his problem. He was going back to Earth. To Emily. Telford would take the expedition team to wherever the ninth chevron led, so Doctor Nicholas Rush was his concern. Not Everett's.

But he was Everett's concern now. 

Everett tightened his arm around Rush. “Telford started something up with your twin, is what I think. The jackass. The ship was exploding and he found Rush, er, your double, alone, and he decided to pressure him. Maybe he grabbed him like he grabbed you yesterday. Maybe they scuffled, and Telford fell back into the machinery.”

Everett grasped Rush by the back of the neck, pulling him a little closer so that their foreheads were almost touching. “Don't you ever make the mistake he did, thinking that I would automatically condemn you like that. Don't you ever make the decision he did, are we clear on that, Nicholas?”

Rush's eyes. God. He must have realized how much he was giving away to Everett because he brought his hands up and covered his face.

Everett wondered if Rush had ever allowed himself to grieve for his twin. 

“Shhh,” he said, although Rush wasn't making a sound and his body had gone rigid. He started running his hand up and down Rush's back. “I want to help you, you know. I've been trying to help you since we landed here. You don't make it easy, Nicholas. And let's face it. You could use some assistance when it comes to getting along with other people. I'm betting that half the time you piss people off and you don't even know that they're upset. Or you've decided you don't care if they want to boil you in oil. Your twin felt so bad about what happened to his crew that he wanted to die, so that tells me what you feel about this crew.”

“This isn't fair,” Rush whispered, behind his hands. “You, you're, we're here, naked, and you have your hands on me and you're acting like you care, but this is an interrogation, and it's just the bloody situation with the pods, and it's not real, and you have to let me out of this bed, because, because—” Rush dropped his hands and pushed hard against Everett's chest, breathing fast. “Just let me up, let me up, let me _up._ ”

Everett let him go. Rush's eyes were wet, and there were teeth marks on his bottom lip.

Rush scrambled out of bed and looked around for his clothes, not meeting Everett's eyes. 

Everett sighed. “Calm down. You're all right.” He sat up and fished under the top comforter and pulled out their clothes, all in a jumble. He found Rush's boxers and balled them up. “Here.” He tossed them to him. “And we're not done. You said you knew your twin would have gone to the neural interface room.”

Rush pulled on his boxers and Everett threw him his jeans. Rush didn't answer him. Everett gritted his teeth and counted to fifteen. In Ancient. Then he shot out of bed and started dressing fast. When he was done he held out Rush's once white shirt; when Rush walked over to get it, he held on to it until Rush looked him in the eyes. “I'm not going to touch you right now. I know how you get and I'd rather not have a bite on my hand to match Lieutenant Scott's.” Rush flinched. “I know that this is hard for you to talk about, but Telford won't let this drop.” 

He gave Rush his shirt, waited until he'd pulled it on. “You want me to run interference for you with Telford?” 

Rush gave him a withering look. “O' course not. I can handle him.”

Everett raised his eyebrows. Rush scowled. “Oh, stop. He's not usually so... hands on.” Rush grabbed his T-shirt and pulled it on over the dingy long-sleeved shirt, then sat down on the bed and tugged on his socks, and boots. He looked up at Everett and pushed a hand through his tangled hair, and then reached up and rubbed the back of his shoulder. “Colonel, about what happened in the shower room...”

Everett waited, but Rush seemed tongue-tied. Rolling his eyes, Everett took pity on him. “You're welcome.” He sat down next to him, and cautiously put an arm around his shoulders. “You went to the neural interface room and saw your twin there. He told you he was going to commit suicide--”

Rush looked away. “He didn't put it that way, but I knew. He asked for my help and I gave it.”

“Go on,” Everett said gently. “What did you two do?”

“He wanted to know it all, to have all that knowledge, to know what the Ancients had known, to let Destiny give it to him. But he couldn't do it by himself. He knew I'd come; he knew I'd help.” 

Everett could picture it, the explosions around the two men, mirror images of each other except for the bandaged wound on the face of one of them. The desperation on that Rush's face, the hopelessness. Pity and sympathy on the face of the man now sitting next to him.

“He sat in the chair, didn't he? And you turned it on.”

“Aye.” Rush sat so very still, his eyes closed, his shoulders slumped. Aside from when he'd half strangled the man, Everett wasn't sure he'd ever seen Rush without his shoulders being held straight as he dealt with whatever crap they'd landed in. But... Matt had. He'd told Everett how Rush had sat slumped on a boulder, sobs shaken loose from him as grief about Amanda Perry's death hit him. 

“Okay,” Everett whispered, “Okay. Then you left him and ran like hell back to the gate.”

“Aye.”

“You owe Scott for holding it open, you know. I ordered him to not go after you, but he insisted on waiting till the last second before coming through, hoping you would make it.”

“I know.” Rush opened his eyes and stared at his hands, twined in his lap.

“Why didn't you tell us this?”

Rush was silent. Everett waited on him to speak but after several minutes he asked,“You've told me this much, c'mon, why did you keep this to yourself?” He pulled Rush a little closer to him, and Rush let him. 

“Nicholas?”

“It was personal, Colonel. I didn't want to talk about it.” Rush's voice was very quiet.

“That he essentially chose suicide and you helped him.”

“Yes. And now I find out he's alive. That he, I, ascended. _Ascension._ That's brilliant, that I'm now a child back on Earth and before you ask about that, I don't have a fucking clue.” He rubbed his forehead, silent and still, while Everett just kept his arm around the man. After a time, Rush spoke, his voice brittle, “And now you know all of it, so you can let me go; you don't have to be so bloody nice.”

“Nice.” Everett said cautiously, feeling like he'd just triggered a detonator and was now waiting for the explosion.

Rush waved a hand carelessly. “Oh, you know. Giving me a hand when I was being daft. Warming me up. Keeping Telford off me. I've been debriefed, so you don't have to coddle me anymore.”

“You think I was just being nice so you would talk to me?”

“Oh, I'm very sure ye were influenced by the stasis pod mucking about in our heads, too.”

So Rush seemed to think Everett was incapable of being nice to him unless there was an ulterior motive to achieve or he was kind of drugged into it. 

Son-of-a-gun.

Everett didn't know if he wanted to clout Rush on the head or kiss him.

He did both.

He gently knocked three times with his knuckles on the top of Rush's forehead, and then kissed his hair lightly.

Rush pulled away from him startled, but Everett drew him back.

“I know I've told you this before, Nicholas Rush, but you know what? You're a lotta, lotta work.”

He left Rush sitting there on the bed touching his hair gingerly where Everett had kissed him. He went into the bathroom; when he came out, Rush was gone.

 

* * *

When Everett took over for Eli and Matt, Eli told him that Rush had radioed them and said he was checking some readings in the control Interface room before he came to the bridge.

“Right,” Everett said. “I wonder what he's really doing.” So Rush had stopped by the recharging station when he left Everett's room, and snagged a radio. He wondered if Rush would answer it. It was always a fifty-fifty proposition with that guy.

“Um. He's running a diagnostic on the FTLs.” Eli pointed to a monitor with rapidly scrolling Ancient numbers. “See.”

Everett moved next to him and stared at the screen. “Doesn't mean he's there. He could have set that up and left.” 

Everett felt miffed that Rush was avoiding him. That's what this was about, he'd bet his next fruit ration on it. That, and Rush probably had some other secret agenda he was working on. 

“Colonel?” Everett turned to look at Eli, who pointed to the data. The numbers on the screen were frozen.

“Did you do that?” Everett asked Eli.

Eli shrugged. “Nooo. Rush did. He's really there, Colonel.” Eli leaned a little closer to him and said quietly. “Look, if you need to go talk to him, I can hold down the fort till you get back.”

Unfortunately, Eli wasn't as quiet as he probably thought he was being because Matt looked over at Everett, a concerned look on his face. “Sir, is something wrong?” 

He was not explaining this bond thing to anybody else. Besides, Matt looked tired; so did Eli. This wasn't their problem. He'd deal with Rush.

“No, nothing's wrong. You two get some rest. But first, I need to update you both. Maybe it's best that Rush isn't here because he could barely stand to tell me what happened on the other Destiny with his twin; he's not going to want to talk about it again.”

“So, what happened?” Eli asked. 

“The one from the other timeline ran off after Telford died and went to the neural interface room. Our Rush found him there and they talked, briefly. Our Rush is convinced that his twin told him the truth, that Telford's death was an accident and that he didn't sabotage dialing Earth, but the other Rush felt guilty because he didn't save the crew by talking them out of dialing or by making the wormhole safer. Rush said his twin was sure he'd be held responsible for Telford's death and apparently that was too much for him to handle. So he decided to die with Destiny.”

“Damn it,” Matt said. 

“I know,” Everett agreed. “I shouldn't have authorized Rush, ah, the other Rush, to return to Destiny. If I'd known he was that much of a mess I'd have told TJ to keep him in the infirmary.” 

“But he didn't die,” Eli pointed out. “He ascended.”

Everett nodded. “All we know is that he sat in the neural interface chair and our Rush pushed all the buttons.”

“The other Rush knew he could ascend by using the chair?” Matt asked, a little incredulously. 

Everett shook his head. “Rush didn't say that. He doesn't know how his double ascended. He said his twin was desperate to know everything he could that Destiny would give him before he died in the star.”

Eli chimed in. “Rush doesn't believe he can ascend. He, ah, told me that, on the kino footage from the planet of deadly lizards and weird time-streams.”

“Guess he was wrong about that.” Matt said.

“Or somebody gave him a hand?” Eli looked at Everett and Matt. “Doctor Jackson was helped by the Ancients, maybe Rush was, too.”

“Jackson's kind of unique. And the Ancients who were willing to help, they're not available anymore,” Everett pointed out.

“Maybe those super-being aliens that sent dead Caine and the others back did it. Maybe,” Eli said, like he was narrating a horror movie, “they're creepily keeping tabs on us.” 

Matt gave Eli an amused look. “Maybe they're documenting us the same way you've done with all the kino stuff.” 

“Maybe it's time you two got out of here. Get some sleep. That's an order,” Everett said, not bothering to hide his own amusement.

“Yes, sir,” Matt said, smiling, and standing up from the command chair. Everett noticed his hand was wrapped in one of TJ's homemade bandages.

“How's the hand?” Everett asked. “It looked like Rush bit you pretty hard.”

“It's better, but I think I owe General Telford a punch in the face,” Matt said, but he was smiling. 

“Telford, not Rush?” Eli asked. “I mean, he's the one who turned into Cujo. And I bet he doesn't apologize to you.”

“No, he probably won't, but I'm not mad at him, Eli. Telford pushed him into having to defend himself.” Matt yawned and covered his mouth with his uninjured hand.

“Rush doesn't really know any hand to hand, but he's a scrappy fighter. I told him he was going to start learning self-defense.” Everett looked at Eli severely. “It wouldn't hurt for the rest of the civilians who aren't trained to take some classes, too.”

Eli groaned. “Oh, so not looking forward to that.”

“Sir, James is pretty proficient with self-defense. TJ and Barnes are decent, too. And what about you, sir? I know you're good.” Matt stretched and rolled his shoulders and grabbed a radio, affixing it to his belt.

“Yeah, I think I might help out, but I'd want someone else to actually teach the class. But we'll talk about that later. Dismissed, Lieutenant.”

Matt nodded and and walked toward the door. When Eli didn't come with him, he stopped. “Eli, you coming with me to the mess?”

“I'll catch up to you there so keep my bowl of deliciousness warm for me, okay?”

Matt arched his eyebrows, a mute comment that he knew Eli wanted a private word with Everett. All he said, though, was, “Sure. Bye, Colonel.”

Once Matt was gone and the bridge door shut, Eli asked, concern in his voice, “How are you and Rush doing, Colonel? I wasn't sure if it was good thing that he's hiding down at the Applecore, or a bad thing.”

“We're doing okay,” Everett reassured him. “That last conversation we had was pretty intense and I think he needs a break from me. Or else he's back to plotting about something.”

“Uh,” Eli said, looking away. “Sorry about intruding.”

“Don't worry about it, Eli,” Everett answered in a matter of fact tone.

Eli laughed. “You know, when _you_ say those four words, I actually do stop worrying.”

Everett smiled at him ruefully. “We're following Rush's plan to wean us away from the attraction we've got now. Rush thinks things will go back to normal then.”

Eli looked at him hesitantly; Everett slapped him on the shoulder and said, “Say what you want to say, Eli, and then go get your breakfast.”

“It's just that for you two, maybe normal isn't that great, you know? No bonding, I get that neither of you want that, but maybe you guys will end up getting along better after this. Maybe?”

Everett shrugged. “Anything's possible. I don't hate Rush, although he thinks I do. When he's working with me and not around me, I think we've made a good team. I'd like to keep to that level of cooperation, but he's got to stay honest with me.”

Eli was nodding, so Everett continued. “I don't know if he can. I still don't know why he kept the things secret that he did. The bridge, that he was talking to the projection of Dr. Franklin, the math corridor.”

“Yeah. I don't think any of us get it.” Eli stood up and stretched. 

“When the crew's awake, I'd like the science team and that includes Chloe, to do some critical thinking about why Rush acts the way he does. Treat it as problem to solve, gather data, discuss theories.” 

“Like a focus group?” Eli said, thoughtfully.

“Yes, exactly. Because I want to make some changes with how we do things on this rust bucket. I think it'd be better for everyone and hopefully get Rush integrated with the crew. And to do that I think I need a better handle on why he does what he does.” Everett rubbed the back of his neck, a little surprised at how cold his hand felt.

“Okay,” Eli said. “One focus group coming up.” He shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “ Um, I've been thinking about something Telford told me. He said Dr. McKay had some serious concerns about the effects of doubling up in the pods. Maybe there's more in the archives about that. I thought I'd take a look, while things are slow this week.”

“Good idea. So, is there a legitimate reason Rush would need to use the Applecore instead of checking things from the bridge?”

“Well,” Eli hedged, “the Applecore console, the main one that's right on the core, it's bigger and easier to manipulate. But he could manage here without any problems.”

“Okay, thanks, Eli. See you in twelve hours.”

“Yeah. I'm going to huddle under a bunch of blankets and watch movies on my Iphone. I can't wait until Destiny turns up the heat again.” 

Eli left then, taking a radio with him, and Everett rubbed his cold hands together. He'd give Rush another two hours to have some privacy, and if Rush hadn't come to the bridge by then, he'd try ordering him to show up. 

He sat down in the command chair and started calling up the reports that Eli and Scott had left on the state of the ship. 

 

* * *

“Rush, report to the bridge.”

Everett had given him an extra hour but he wasn't going to let Rush spend the entire shift down there alone. It wasn't safe, for one thing, not with these low temperatures. And while Everett got it, that Rush needed some time to pull himself together after letting Everett drag one of his secrets out of him, that time was up.

Silence. Everett waited for ninety seconds, then tried again.

“Rush, answer the radio.” He was going to see if TJ could stick a chip in that man so he couldn't disappear ever again. How he wished the Ancients had figured out beaming technology before launching Destiny. He would have loved to be able to push a button and have Rush deposited in front of him.

Silence again. Damn it. He drummed his fingers on the arms of the command chair. Rush was probably all right. He was now running scans on the navigation system or at least he'd started them. But what if...?

“Rush. If you don't report in right now, I'm waking up Eli and Scott to form a search party for you. You were hypothermic last night and this ship hasn't gotten any warmer since then. So if you're just being obstinate and not answering the radio because you don't want to talk to me, think again.”

Ten seconds slowly ticked by.

“Rush here. There's no need to wake those two up. I'm fine; I'm working in the control interface room.”

“Not any more. Report to the bridge.”

“Colonel, I've been running systems diagnostics. I need to finish them.”

“Which you can do from the bridge; I asked Eli about it, so get up here.”

Silence again.

“Consider this a wellness check, Rush.”

“I'm fine, Colonel.”

“I didn't say it was your wellness check.”

“Oh. On my way. Rush out.”

Seriously, Everett thought. So much work. 

Everett much preferred being straightforward with people, but he could use other tactics – such as implying he was having trouble and needed a Rush fix – to achieve a goal. 

He rubbed his hands together, trying to generate some warmth in them. He'd been walking around the bridge when he started to feel too cold, but his hands stayed freezing, even with every so often putting them in his pockets. He grinned evilly, picturing putting his cold hands under Rush's shirts and against his skin to warm them back up. The annoyed, outraged look on Rush's face would be a lot of fun to see.

His grin faded though as he remembered supporting Rush in the stasis pod and feeling surprised at the softness of the bare skin under his hands. The loose jeans had made it easy to slide his hand down and stroke the other man's ass, and later, in the corridor, to cup his balls, heavy and full, before they'd stopped their insanity. And later,the sounds Rush had made as he'd lost himself to Everett's touch as they moved under the covers had been so gratifying to hear. 

Damn it. He felt flushed from his memories and he was hardening, his mouth dry. He wanted to bunch up Rush's hair at his nape, holding him tightly so Rush couldn't evade him, and plunder his mouth. 

He longed to feel the rigidity in Rush's body soften again, experience Rush becoming pliant, becoming _cooperative._

He wanted to take hours and hours to seduce the man into doing things he'd maybe never done before with another man, or anybody, but being willing to follow Everett's lead. To trust Everett implicitly; to have faith in him. 

It would never happen.

He stomped down the lust that had surged through his body, and reminded himself that Rush didn't want sex with him, didn't want a relationship, didn't want to even be in the same room as Everett. 

Rush's words echoed in his mind. “This isn't real. This is artificial. I'm poison; you should be glad we're not bound together.”

He could seduce Rush into giving Everett everything he wanted. He knew he could. Rush had been so responsive in his bed before Eli had barged in to warn them about Telford. 

Rush had no defenses against him, not now, not while he was still under the influence of whatever neural changes had happened in his brain. Everett could take him completely, bind Rush to him. 

Rush had said he knew Everett wasn't a rapist. Acting on the power he held over Rush would be rape. Even if he got Rush to beg to be fucked, he'd know it wasn't what Rush truly wanted.

And Everett did have to look in the mirror once in a while. He wanted to be able to look himself in the eye and know that he'd acted as honorably as he could.

He'd despised the man he'd seen in the mirror after stranding Rush on that planet. He never wanted to see that man again.

So, he'd honor the faith, the trust, Rush had placed in him and he'd keep the other man safe from Everett's lust and Rush's own desires.

 

* * *

The bridge door slid open and Rush hustled inside and straight to the command chair, breathing fast. He gave Everett an assessing look, brushing those long brown bangs out of his eyes.

“Are you alright, Colonel?” 

“Did you run here from the control interface room?” Everett asked, a little surprised. “Careful. I might think you were worried about me.”

Rush crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. “O' course not.”

“But you ran here. No way could you have gotten here this fast unless you flat-out ran.”

Rush looked past Everett, avoiding his eyes. “For the exercise, I assure you.” Rush was lying to him again, but Everett didn't mind this time. 

Everett grinned at him. “Sure. For the exercise.” 

Rush huffed. “Colonel, the matter at hand is how you're feeling, and you've no answered me. Are you alright?”

Time to be honest. Rush was the scientist, even if this wasn't exactly his field, he had tons more knowledge than Everett did about this whole mess. 

“I wanted you pretty badly a little while ago. I've got it back under control now, though. What about you?”

Rush didn't say anything, but he nodded his head. 

“So it's under control for you?” Everett asked, noticing that Rush had managed to brush his hair, since it wasn't a tangled mop anymore. 

Rush massaged the area between his left shoulder and neck and then stopped. “Yes. I had a, let's call it a flareup, but I handled it.”

Everett choked. “You did not just say that.”

Rush looked puzzled, then disbelieving, then rolled his eyes. “For God's sake, Colonel, we're not twelve. You know exactly what I meant.”

Everett gave a one shouldered shrug, grinning a little. “I guess when you were twelve you weren't peeking looks at Playboy. You probably lived at the library and kept your nose in college level Algebra or Calculus textbooks.”

“I mastered those when I was eight or so.” Rush said in a disdainful tone. 

“Guess I'm not surprised. So what were you doing when you were twelve?”

An odd look crossed Rush's face, but he said nothing.

“C'mon, spill. Did you play any sports? Soccer, maybe, or run track or cross-country?” Everett stretched his arms out and arched his back. He was tired of sitting in the command chair. He'd let Rush have it. 

Rush looked away. “Oh, I did a fair amount of running. Climbing, dodging, too.” 

“Twelve was probably the last year I did dodge ball at recess. I played football and hockey and baseball. Never was much good at basketball.” Everett smiled, remembering how much he'd enjoyed team sports. Maybe they could do something on the ship. They'd yet to find a gym, though. 

“Mmm,” Rush murmured. “I dabbled with sports, you might say, but my father put an end to it by the time I was thirteen.”

Everett frowned. “That's too bad.”

Rush smiled a little, and Everett wondered why he'd never noticed those dimples before.

“It was for the best, really,” Rush said, and Everett looked hard at him. Something was off about the other man. Something in the way he'd sounded just then. 

Derailing Everett's thoughts, Rush said briskly, edging back towards the door, “So. I should return to the control interface room, since you're fine.”

“Nope. You can finish those systems checks right here.”

Slowly Rush kept moving. “Colonel, I--”

“I assigned two-man teams to each shift for a reason, Rush. It's safer. And hiding away down there won't solve anything.” Everett got up from the command chair and moving fast caught up to Rush and grasped his arm. Rush arched his eyebrows but didn't try to jerk free.

“I wasn't hiding. I radioed in my position to Scott.” Rush said, probably trying to sound indignant with a side order of sarcastic, but missing it by a few light years.

“You're the lead scientist here; I'm Destiny's commanding officer, and--”

“As if I need reminding,” Rush interrupted snidely.

“Quiet, you.” Rush rolled his eyes but he kept his mouth shut. Everett decided to just be blunt with him. He added, “And yeah, I think you do need a reminder. I can come up with a couple of reasons why you want to avoid me. Embarrassment over me helping you to dress and taking care of you, the whole aborted sex thing, and telling me about your twin, for starters, but we have to work together and that means being able to tolerate being in the same room and looking at each other.”

Rush crossed his arms over his chest, but Everett didn't let go of his bicep. “I just want to do my work, Colonel. And I don't want to talk about what's happened with us. I only told you about my other self because the situation changed since he descended, although I don't think any of that information will help General Telford. I don't want to discuss any of it further.”

“Okay. Let's make a truce.” Rush cocked his head, listening, so Everett added. “I won't bring up your twin, or you being out of your mind, although that wasn't your fault. I won't say anything about how great you were in bed yesterday either.”

Rush shot him a sharp look at that last crack and color bloomed on his cheeks. 

And no, Everett was not regretting making Nicholas Rush blush. He didn't think anybody would believe him that Rush was even capable of doing such a thing, though. He smiled smugly at Rush and Rush glared at him. 

Water off a duck's back, though, knowing why Rush was trying to incinerate him with his eyes. Everett just grinned at him.

Rush gave it up and made an exasperated sound. “Colonel.”

Everett chuckled. “All right, back to my truce. In return for what I just said, you work up here, and don't disappear on me. Besides, don't we have to do some platonic touching a few times during the day?” 

“We should. As long as we both are feeling calm about things.” Rush ran his free hand through his hair, thinking for a moment, his eyes downcast, then looked up at Everett. “Alright, Colonel, I accept your truce.”

“This means until we reach the star, understand?”

“Yes, yes.” 

“Okay, then. I just want to check on something.” Everett slid his hand down Rush's arm and pulled up the sleeves of the two BDU jackets Rush was wearing.

Rush's wrist showed a large reddish-blue bruise. Everett gently turned his hand over and saw another good-sized bruise over the veins that showed under his skin. 

“Do you mind?” Rush said testily, but he didn't yank his arm away.

Everett had to stifle the impulse to lift Rush's wrist to his lips and kiss the bruises. 

Instead he ran a thumb over the delicate skin, tracing the veins. Rush's wrists were thin. Everett could probably hold both of them with just one hand.

“I'm going to speak to O'Neill about this. Telford was out-of-line with you.”

“Don't bother.” Rush started breathing a little fast.

“He hurt you.” Everett skimmed his thumb lightly over the bruise, and Rush shuddered. And still, he didn't pull away. 

“It doesn't matter.”

“Yeah, it does, Nicholas.”

“I never said anything to O'Neill about you. I think it best to let this go, Colonel.”

“Are you blackmailing me?” Everett continued to stroke Rush's wrist gently.

“Well, just a bit.”

“Rush,” Everett growled, and released the other man's wrist.

Rush took a deep breath and pulled his sleeve back down so that it partly covered his hand, matching his other sleeve. “Colonel, if we open this can of worms then Telford will certainly arrange to have questions brought up about my being left on the planet and how I looked after we came back from the alien ship. I don't think too many people bought that the bruises and blood on me were from being tossed around in the turbulence when the ship was bumped.”

“Nobody challenged that story.”

Rush shrugged. “Because they all thought I deserved being beaten like that, for keeping the bridge secret. So let it go. It's better this way.”

“Better,” Everett said, raising his eyebrows.

“Aye. Leave the past alone. And we're better, are we no? Aside from not trusting me to kill myself if I'd been the one to stay out of the last pod. So, leave it behind. Move on.”

“That's what you do, isn't it? That's why you don't want to go back to Earth.” Everett looked at him, wondering. Maybe that's why his twin was able to ascend, because Rush was probably pretty good at leaving his life behind and moving on. He'd joined stargate command, hadn't he? He would stay on Destiny alone, cutting all ties with other human beings if it came down to staying here or going back to Earth. 

Rush gave him a twisted smile that didn't show any of his dimples this time. 

“Ah, you've got me all figured out, don't you, Colonel. So, we're agreed? We don't talk to O'Neill about Telford leaving me these?” He held up his arms.

“For now. But I'm going to make it clear to Telford that this sort of thing had better not happen again. I'm not having him rough up my crew.”

“Fine. Now, I've wasted enough time with all of this. Can I go back to work, Colonel?”

Everett was astounded that Rush even asked the question, but then he wasn't sure Rush wasn't just being sarcastic with him. Sometimes it was hard to tell with this guy.

“In a few minutes.” Everett wanted to try something, since he thought Rush had been more open and honest while Everett had been holding him. “Let's kill two birds with one stone first. Or call it multi-tasking. You're a fan of doing that, I know.”

“What?” Rush bit out, and this time there was no doubt about the impatient sarcasm laced throughout that one syllable.

Everett clasped Rush's cold hands in his own. “This seems platonic enough. So, while we're holding hands like a couple of high school kids, you can tell me again about the other beatings you've gotten from that bunch of vigilantes. And this time, I want as many details as you can remember.”

Rush sighed, and Everett held the other man's hands more firmly. “Rush, it's necessary.”

“For the greater good; I do remember your argument.” Rush arched his eyebrows, thinking. “I hadn't considered that those yobs were maybe teaching other people lessons, too. But I didn't want to remember all of that so I mostly put it out of my mind. I don't know that there's anything more to say.”

Everett said patiently, “Try. Close your eyes and think back to the first time. Where were you, what were you doing?”

Rush closed his eyes. “It was after, ah, after Scott found the calcium carbonate we needed for the air filters and we fixed the scrubbers. I was already bruised from when Greer and I tussled--”

“What? What happened between you and Greer?”

Rush opened his eyes, shrugged. “It was nothing. Just a bit of temper with both of us. We rolled down a dune and got over ourselves.”

Everett's stomach felt sour, bile churning at this news. “Was Greer one of your attackers then, one of the vigilantes?”

Rush's eyes widened in obvious surprise. “O' course not.” He threw in that edge of disdain he had in his speech about half the time. 

“Rush,” Everett halfway growled, “are you sure?” And he hated, absolutely hated that he had to ask that. But, Greer could be hot-headed, and he'd let Everett know that if Rush had to be taken out, Greer would do it. 

“Aye, I'm sure. Not his style, is it, to skulk around? No, he wasn't one of them,” Rush said impatiently, and shook his head to get his bangs out of his eyes. “And don't go talking to him about this, Colonel. He's no pulled a gun on me for ages now, and we understand each other better. We get along well enough.” 

“He went after you when he was carrying that tick,” Everett said, feeling he had to point that out. God, what a mess that had been with those damn hallucinations the ticks had induced.

Rush nodded. “And I bashed him good because I thought he was a Nakai. It was poor Camile that got the worse end of that, from both of us.”

“She and Greer seem fine with each other now.”

“Aye, after that business with the stones and defusing the Lucian Alliance bomb. Greer's your man, through and through, but as long as I don't oppose you, he's no gonnae do anything to me. And we share a certain pragmatic approach, which I find refreshing, to be honest. I'd rather work with him when we're on a planet than most of the others. I don't have any qualms about Greer, Colonel.”

Everett felt relieved. Rush was right, hiding his face to beat Rush up wasn't Greer at all. 

“Good to know. But you're not done. Keep talking.” He tightened his hold on Rush's hands just a little. 

Rush gave that aggrieved sigh, but closed his eyes again and picked up where he'd left off in his narrative.

The man was a lot of work, true. But hard work sometimes paid off, if you were willing to do it.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cujo is the name of a St. Bernard dog who becomes rabid and kills people in a Stephen King novel and movie.


	10. Conversations and Meetings

**Destiny. The Bridge**

“And what's this?” Rush eyed the bowl in his hand with dark suspicion, and Everett was torn between wanting to laugh and smacking him on the back of his head. God, only Rush.

After he'd gotten as many details out of Rush as he could about the beatings and they'd let their hands go, Rush had worked quietly for several hours at the systems console, pointedly ignoring Everett. Well, it felt that way to him. Of course, to be fair, from the complaints he'd heard Rush didn't talk much to the science team either unless it was about their work. Wanting to stretch his legs, Everett had gone to the mess and brought back a late lunch. Apparently Everett's quiet footsteps had spooked the other man, and he'd jumped up from his seat in front of the bridge window and whirled around, fists clenching, a startled expression on his face.

Everett had stepped close and placed a mug of tea by the console and had handed him the bowl of protein paste. 

Which Rush was trying to hand back.

Everett rolled his eyes. “ _What is this?_ Are you serious? You know what it is. We've eaten it practically every day since we landed on this bucket of bolts.” 

Rush rolled his eyes right back. “I was referring to the _amount_. Obviously. Here, switch with me.” He tried again to get Everett to take the bowl back. “You made a mistake and gave me yours. Try to pay attention to what you're doing, Colonel, since we're minding the ship.”

“I didn't make a mistake, Rush. I put extra in yours because you skipped breakfast,” Everett said, determined not to start sniping with his difficult lead scientist. 

Rush made a disturbed sound and stared at him. “And how did you know-- ah, never mind.” He glanced down at the bowl as if it were full of snakes.

“You need the calories.” Everett tried to keep his tone of voice indifferent, but Rush scowled at him. Guess he sounded like he gave a damn after all.

“Stop being nice to me.”

“You don't like me being considerate towards you?” he asked, a little amused by Rush's contrariness. 

“No. It's unsettling. Remember these feelings you're having are not your true ones.” Rush shot Everett a disgusted look and stirred the mush with his spoon aimlessly. 

Scooping up a mouthful of his own paste, Everett resolved to be nice to Rush just to annoy the other man. There weren't a lot of amusements on Destiny. This could be fun, to be as kind to Rush as possible and watch him fume about it. He swallowed a mouthful and said, “This is the last of the banana flavored stuff.” He pointed his spoon at Rush. “Eat it, or you'll be the one making mistakes.”

Rush shrugged, took a bite, and ate it slowly. Everett had noticed that the other man seemed to only have two speeds when it came to eating: gulping his food down like a maniac if he was eager to get to work out in the ship or dawdling like a kid with an unwanted dinner if he wanted to think and write in one of his tattered little notebooks. He would take a slow bite, and then lay down his fork or spoon and stare into space before scribbling something down. 

He rarely sat with anyone. Once in a while, Camile or Chloe would join him, or Eli would bop over with a question. The exception had been when Doctor Perry had joined them. Rush had spent every minute he could with her. 

He had to be lonely now, with Amanda Perry quarantined in the ship's computer system.

Rush glanced at him, a confused look on his face. “Did you say something?” 

“No.” He smiled, because seeing Rush puzzled was always a treat. Unless it was a problem with the ship that was making Rush's forehead wrinkle up like that.

Rush cocked a hip forward and paused, spoon dripping with the pale yellow mush. “And what's got you in such a good mood?” he asked, curiosity overriding the confusion. 

Everett smiled wider. Damn, he was in a good mood, despite the messy situation with Rush.

“Well, for one thing, I finally got a decent night's sleep. The whole week before we went into stasis there was one thing or another that kept me from getting much shut-eye.” He started methodically eating his lunch, trying not remember the details of that crappy week.

Rush said, a rare note of commiseration in his tone, “I remember.” Right. Rush had been kept awake too.

“Besides,” Everett said, and reached for his tea, “I've finally got some time and peace and quiet to do some long term planning. Read over the ship's status reports again and TJ's and Camile's files on the crew. ” He sipped the tea, made with the last of the plants they'd gathered from the planet where TJ and Reynolds had been taken by the intelligent predators.

Rush leaned back against the console, his eyes on Everett, thoughtful. 

Everett added, “I want to make some changes when we revive the crew. Once Camile is awake, the three of us should meet and discuss them.”

Rush nodded.

“Besides,” Everett said, smiling again, “we made it across the void without Eli dying and the crew is safe in stasis. And we've left the drones and hopefully the Nakai behind.”

“Ah,” Rush said. “Yes, hopefully we'll be free of them,” and then fell to eating his lunch rapidly. That first taste must have woken up his appetite. Everett knew the other man had the ability to put aside hunger and thirst and exhaustion, although it would eventually catch up to him. He suspected that a good deal of Rush's famous pissed off moods were from low blood sugar and skipping out on sleep. 

He wondered if the science team had ever graphed Rush's moods to see if they correlated with his not eating or sleeping. He'd ask Eli about it. He'd seen for himself the difference getting enough sleep had made in Rush's behavior. The stomping through the ship bad mood on legs had been quiet and cooperative after getting some solid sleep post losing it in the gate room and ranting himself into passing out. 

Rush's non-apology about his behavior – because he'd been in caffeine withdrawal – had irked him, though. Could still annoy him if he thought about it too much. 

He decided not to think about it. He wanted to hang on to his good mood for the rest of the day.

But he wondered if the words, “I'm sorry,” were even in Rush's vocabulary. 

Rush drank down half of his tea in one long swallow. Everett sipped his and watched the colors streaming against the bridge windows. They were beautiful and usually observing them helped him to feel relaxed.

“So, what's on your agenda for the week?” Everett asked.

“Various things,” Rush answered, and finished his tea. He started walking past Everett, who snagged him by the arm.

“Where are you going?”

“The bathroom.” Rush tried to jerk free but Everett held on tighter.

“Don't make any side trips.”

Rush's breath pushed out in an aggravated sigh and he tried again to pull free. Everett didn't let go.

“If you disappear on me, I'll be escorting you to the john for the rest of the week when I catch up to you. You understand me? We're safer working in pairs.”

“Yes, yes, I know. But you're not my keeper, Colonel,” Rush said tiredly.

“Somebody needs to be. And you know what Harry Truman said.”

“Actually, I don't know and I don't care. Either turn me loose or come with me; you're wasting my time, Colonel.” Rush pushed his hair back with his free hand, his expression morphing from annoyed to searching as he stepped towards Everett instead of away from him. Their eyes met and oh shit. That same look had been on Rush's face when they'd kissed in his bed last night. Everett felt an answering surge of attraction.

He dropped Rush's arm and gave him a small shove, diverting the build up of lust between them. 

“Go. And remember what I said.”

Rush walked away quickly, but gave Everett a troubled look over his shoulder before slamming his hand against the door control.

After Rush stepped into the hallway and the door closed, Everett said to the empty bridge, “The buck stops here.”

He was damn sure nobody else on the ship wanted or could handle the position of being Rush's keeper. Nope. No siree. Not a chance. 

For better or worse, Rush was his responsibility.

 

* * * 

Everett stopped typing, his attention caught by Rush shifting in his seat at the front of the bridge. The other man was grimacing, his hand massaging the back of his neck. Remembering the feel of the tight muscles on Rush's shoulders, back, and neck, Everett felt some sympathy towards him. The leg he had injured during dialing in to Destiny had cramped up on him for months afterwards, leaving Everett frustrated and in pain. 

He could have confessed the trouble he was having with it to TJ, but he was afraid she might offer to massage it for him. With trying to reconcile with Emily, he didn't want to return to Earth with the feel of TJ's strong hands on his skin. And afterwards, when Emily had ended things between them, well, he and TJ had already gone in different directions. 

Sometimes, he wondered about his alternate self, about why he and TJ had become lovers again. They'd had children together. Different circumstances, he guessed. Maybe he'd realized there was no chance of coming back to Destiny or Earth and you couldn't ask for a better mate than TJ. She and Varro hadn't had time to get to know each other, when they'd dialed within a star, either. Guess Everett had courted TJ before Varro had a chance to make a move.

Most of the crew had paired up on Novus. James and Varro. Chloe and Matt, although he doubted anyone was surprised when they married. Eli and Barnes. Greer had stayed with Park, and they'd had seven kids. Greer was smug as hell about that.

If Everett had dragged Rush with him through the gate – because he surely had thought about it when it became clear that Destiny would be destroyed – would Rush have settled down with anyone? 

Rush would have helped the others, Everett firmly believed. But would he have become a true member of the pioneer society, or would he still have been on the outskirts, watching but rarely joining in socially with the others? Maybe he would have ended up a hermit, covering the walls of his cabin with math that had no practical value anymore. 

Picturing that made Everett's hands clench. Rush was practically a hermit now. What did he do besides work himself into exhaustion and the occasional game of chess with Eli or late night tea with Chloe when nightmares kept the two of them awake? 

He stared at Rush, who had shifted to prodding the muscle between his neck and right shoulder with two fingers, tilting his head forward a little.

After returning from the bathroom moments prior to the deadline Everett had set for himself before going to the facilities himself in search of Rush, the other man had gone back to the systems console and started working again. For hours now, he hadn't said a word to Everett. He hadn't made eye contact with him either. Every time Rush started to slip up and evidently feel something for Everett, he would batten down the hatches afterwards. 

It was annoying. It made Everett decide to do something nice again for Rush, just to flummox him. He wanted to come out of this deal about the pod with a good working relationship with his chief scientist, not have the man pretend that Everett didn't exist in his world. He didn't hate Rush. He needed him. The crew needed him. And damn it, Rush needed them, too. Even if he was too stubborn to admit that to anyone, including himself.

As if he had called Rush's name, the other man swiveled around and glanced over at the command console, his eyes traveling up until they locked with Everett's own. 

“Did you...?” Rush trailed off, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion.

Everett closed his laptop. He was not going to read too much into Rush responding to him twice like that, as if Everett had called his name or said something to him. Perhaps he'd made a sound and not noticed it, but Rush had been distracted by it. Rush was worried enough about the bond they were shutting down. If this was another consequence... Well, it could wait. 

He grinned at Rush. Here he was, being nice to the guy and Rush wouldn't even know it. Just his own little secret good deed for the day. 

“Colonel?” Rush looked wary. 

“So, time for more platonic contact?” Everett asked and pushed himself up from the command chair.

“I suppose,” Rush answered, tracking Everett's movements. 

Stopping in front of Rush, Everett said, “I've got something in mind that'll be more productive than just holding hands.” He swiveled Rush's chair so the other man was facing the window again. Rush turned a little in his seat and looked back at Everett.

“What are you doing, Colonel?” Rush murmured, but he didn't sound concerned. 

Everett blew on his hands and then rubbed them briskly together. “I'm tired of watching you mangle getting the knots out of your shoulders and neck. I'm gonna show you how it's done.”

He put his hands on Rush's shoulders and maneuvered him until he was once again facing the windows, the watercolor effect created by the FTL drive streaming by. He reached down and unbuttoned the top buttons of Rush's jackets. Then he slipped his hands under Rush's clothes, touching warm skin.

“Ahh,” Rush startled, and then muttered, “Shite, your hands are cold.”

“Sorry about that,” Everett said, massaging the tight shoulder muscles under his hands.

Rush said, “Thought I told you to stop being nice to me,” and Everett could see his reflection in the bridge window. He looked resigned and wary and regretful and maybe a little wistful. How one face could hold so many expressions almost simultaneously, Everett had no clue. 

Everett flicked him on the back of the head, but very lightly. “I'm not being nice. I'm increasing our oxytocin levels to shut down the bond by doing platonic touching. And I'm actually being selfish, because watching you do a piss-poor job of this is really annoying.” 

Rush didn't have a smart-ass answer to that, and for a time there was a peaceful silence between them. Rush was relaxing, subtly responding to Everett's hands soothing or pressing into his tight musculature; He wasn't ignoring Everett any longer. 

“I bet you had some of this gnarled up mess even back on Icarus,” Everett murmured, and Rush nodded, closing his eyes. 

Everett worked on a knot, gradually loosening the tight muscle, and then pressed into it. Rush's eyes flew back open and his small groan of relief as it gave way was familiar. But Everett shot that thought down. He wasn't going to think about how responsive and surprisingly uninhibited Rush had been in his bed, how delicious it had felt to make him lose the ability to talk, and listen to Rush's low groans and sighs as he experienced pleasure under Everett's hands.

Moving his hands so that he could concentrate on Rush's neck, Everett asked casually, “You know, you didn't really answer my question earlier about what projects you've got lined up for the week. So what's on your agenda?”

Rush tilted his head forward a little, inviting Everett to keep touching the stiff muscles of Rush's upper neck. He didn't say anything though. Everett didn't push him. He thought Rush would eventually tell him. 

Rush said, after Everett had massaged another knotted muscle into relaxing, “I'm on to you, Colonel.” He sounded a little cheeky to Everett.

“About what?” Everett ran his thumbs up and down Rush's neck, then massaged under his ears, thumbs stroking through the short beard Rush had grown. 

“You must think that all you have to do is to touch me in some fashion and I'll tell you everything you want to know.” Rush said, knowingly. 

“It's worked pretty good so far,” Young said mildly.

“Yes, well, don't count on your nefarious strategy providing results every time.”

Definitely cheeky. 

Everett ruffled Rush's hair, and the other man turned around and gave him an affronted glare. Chuckling, he did it again, enjoying both the feel of Rush's hair and the look on his victim's face.

“Colonel,” Rush snapped, exasperation written all over his face.

“C'mon, Rush. Cough up your plans for the week or I'll mess up your hair in front of the science team when you least expect it.”

“That's bloody blackmail,” Rush said, but he sounded and looked admiring rather than angry to Everett.

“Whatever it takes to get you to communicate with me, Rush. Whatever it takes,” Everett said, and turned Rush back around to face the window. He resumed massaging the tight muscles of Rush's shoulders.

Rush sighed and Everett loved hearing that sweet sound of surrender. Rush said, with a note of admonishment, “Leave my hair alone when I'm with the science team. They have a hard enough time focusing on their tasks without you distracting them.”

“So talk then.”

“I want your word first about this,” Rush said, looking stubborn.

“Deal,” Everett said, trying to keep the laughter out of his voice, but he gave it up and chuckled again. He'd keep his word and not tease Rush like that in front of his team, but he wasn't promising not to ruffle his hair at other times. “So, for the third time, what's on your agenda for the week?”

Rush shrugged. “Finishing the analysis of the ship's systems and listing repairs for Brody to oversee; I'm particularly concerned about the readings with the power relay stations on deck seven. Eli and I will see what we can do about changing some of the code to improve matters with the power system and navigation and weapons. And I think we've got too big of a power drain when we fire weapons, I'd like to see about improving efficiency on that, too. ”

“See, was that so hard to say? What else? Knowing you you've got a dozen other things planned.”

Rush smiled enough so that Everett had a brief glimpse of his dimples. “Aye. I do have some other things to attend to while I'm no likely to be interrupted. Except by you being nosy, maybe. Actually, I think I'll draft you to help, Colonel. You can be my test subject.”

“Happy to give you a hand, Rush. What do you want me to do?”

“I'll get to that. I'm also checking the results of the search queries I set up before we went into stasis. The archive is huge, and I used various terms so as to not miss something vital.” 

“What sort of searches?”

“Ah, just some medical information.” Rush sounded evasive, but Everett figured he knew what the man was up to. 

“For TJ and Park?”

Rush looked down. “They're valuable members of the crew. But I don't know that I'll find anything useful at all. Don't say anything to them, Colonel.”

Rush was so busted. He tried to give the impression that he didn't care for the other members of the crew except for how they could contribute to Destiny's mission, but that was a smoke screen. He cared, Everett knew he did. 

You had to stay sharp to see through that smoke screen, though.

Everett remembered when Rush had earned the science team's disapproval because he hadn't dropped everything else to help them look through the Novus database since it might contain the cure for TJ's disease. Everett knew exactly how Rush had thought that one through. They had needed a way to maintain the air scrubbers which would save everyone and only had limited time to locate any chemicals in the underground shelter on Novus that would work. TJ's symptoms wouldn't manifest for years. But he'd come across as heartless when he'd refused to drop everything and scour through the database that was being uploaded into Destiny's memory banks. It didn't mean he wasn't going to research the problem, just that he had to prioritize and make sure they all, including TJ, lived. When their air wasn't a problem, he'd done what he'd just admitted, research the database. 

He wished people would stop and think before saying Rush was concerned only for himself and not for the crew. He usually would be secretive and deny his actions, fooling people, maybe, but sometimes it was there for everybody to see. He'd sheltered Park with his own body and took the risk that he might be blown up with her when he'd defused the bomb Simeon had placed on her back. Greer had warmed considerably towards Rush after watching that kino footage. Everett wasn't positive but he thought that was when Greer started calling Rush, “Doc.” 

If he said that he knew Rush wasn't just thinking of how TJ and Park could contribute to Destiny, that he liked them and worried about them, the stubborn bastard would find six ways to deny it. So he wouldn't say anything. He wouldn't push Rush right now into wielding his usual defense mechanisms, not when the guy was actually being cooperative. 

“Okay,” was all Everett said, and Rush, who had tensed under his hands, relaxed again.

“Colonel, I need to go down to the study hall for a time. I'll take a radio and we can do regular check-ins.”

“Why?” Rush really wasn't getting the point about staying together. At least Eli and Matt weren't giving Everett a hard time about it. They were sharing a room that had several beds, but he wouldn't be surprised if they, too, were bunking in together. The ship was freezing. 

“I've some calculating to do.”

Everett held tightly to the stubborn son-of-a-bitch and shook him gently. “Full disclosure, Rush. What are you trying to figure out and why can't you do it on the walls up here?”

Rush was quiet. Everett started moving his hands again in small circles on the top of Rush's biceps. 

Breaking the silence, Rush said, “Yes, alright. But I need to stop by my room when our shift is done and get the chalk. Are you sure you want my work scribbled on the bridge?”

“It's fine. I won't understand any of it, I take it,” Everett said, pleased that Rush wasn't going to fight with him about this. 

Wryly, Rush said, “I don't understand it well enough myself, that's why I'd like to puzzle out the work Chloe's been doing with FTL calculations.”

Everett thought about FTL drives for a moment, then asked, “The Nakai ships also use FTL like we do? Because the other Ancient ships Sheppard and the Atlantis crew came across, they don't.”

“I'm no sure.” Rush paused for several long moments, and Everett had given up on him elaborating when he continued. “Colonel, when I was ripping information out of the one Nakai's mind before it attacked me and I killed it, I was concentrating on how to work their small shuttles and the general layout of the ship. And Chloe's location, obviously. I learned a bit about them, though. You see, the Nakai use base eight, as do the Ancients. It's one of the things that so intrigue the Nakai about this ship and the people who built it.”

“You would go right for the alien math.”

Rush's eyebrows raised. “I am a mathematician, Colonel.”

Everett squeezed Rush's left shoulder. “You're more than that. You seem to know a great deal about the other sciences, too. And engineering. And computers and electrical circuits.”

“Yes, well, I did pay attention to my classes in the sciences, although really, I'm shite at botany,” Rush said. 

Everett didn't believe that. “What? Did you get just an A in the class instead of an A+?”

Rush turned in his seat and shot him a look. 

“I think that anything you put your mind to, you're going to be good at. In fact, I'm counting on it,” Everett said. He wanted to add, 'except for your infernal plotting. Your track record there isn't too good, Ace,' but he kept quiet. He didn't want to pick a fight with Rush.

“Well, you'll be sadly disappointed someday, probably. But I do know computers and programing. I taught computational complexity theory, at Berkeley,” Rush said.

“Sounds familiar.” Everett turned him back to facing the window again, and resumed the massage.

“Ah, then you've probably heard mention of various sorts of Turing machines? quantum, universal, multi-track?”

Everett nodded. “I've heard some of those terms thrown around by the scientists on my old gate team, but I was the guy with the gun who made sure they got there and back in one piece during a gate mission. I haven't studied science and math the way you have, so I'm not going to pretend I know what you're talking about half of the time.”

Rush made a rueful sound. “And I've found that shooting a gun and actually hitting your target is harder than the films make it look.”

“We don't have enough ammo to spare for practice shooting, but I can give you some pointers on your stance and how to hold your weapon--”

“How to use your rifle for a crutch?” Rush threw in, interrupting him. 

“If you want, smart-ass.” He gave him a gentle smack to the back of his head, and Rush let slip a small chuckle.

Everett added, “On the time stream videos, though, you looked like you knew what you were doing. Have you had any training at all?” He should make a note to himself to find out just how much weapons training all the civilians had.

“A bit. From Telford, actually,” Rush said. He looked thoughtful. “He's no a bad teacher.”

“David hinted that he'd had some missions with you, before you were assigned to Icarus.”

“Yes. But they didn't end well and... I don't want to discuss them.” Rush seemed to brace himself. Probably thought Everett was going to start interrogating him.

He wasn't going to do that just now, so all he did was say in an accepting tone of voice, “All right. I'll add that to the list of things we do not bring up this week. But someday, I'd like to hear about it.”

“It will take a lot of alcohol before I talk about any of that, Colonel,” Rush muttered.

“Noted. So, you took to figuring out Destiny's systems pretty quickly although I've never understood why you objected so strongly to having the others help you those first few days.” 

Rush covered his face with his hands. “I was no at my best, that's for certain. Explaining things to Volker and the rest of that lot felt like being mired in the mud and I needed to race ahead. Much good it did me, since I passed out.”

Everett gave a low whistle. “You were beyond exhausted. Probably hadn't had much sleep long before you left Icarus to pick up Eli. Riley told me you were up for weeks at all hours of the night, trying to work that problem Eli solved.”

“Aye.” He dropped his hands.

“Maybe if I'd made you get some real rest back then, you might have solved it,” Everett said, gently.

“You'd have had to drug me, because I wouldn't have gone to bed on just your orders, Colonel.”

“I'm making a note about that, too. So, this is your warning, Nicholas. If you get to the same state of exhaustion again, I'll have TJ tranq your ass.”

“As long as the ship isn't in danger of blowing up, or we're under attack, or critical systems are down, or we've stumbled into yet another crisis, then if you can catch me, then fine. I know I don't always think clearly when I get that tired, but I can never seem to just stop and rest. My wife--”

Rush paused, a stricken look on his face. 

Everett felt a wave of sympathy for him, and decided to bail him out. “So, you know, some of the crew call you the ship-whisperer because of how you've gotten Destiny to respond to you. Especially since you broke the master code.”

Rush said, “I have a feel for Ancient technology.” He sighed. “Things would have been a deal easier if the ship had responded to me the way the later Ancient tech does. I could have powered up systems and been granted access to the bridge just by laying my hands on the ship's consoles. The rest of my skill-sets, well, I picked them up through the years.”

“You're a handy guy to keep around.” He squeezed Rush's shoulder again, a wordless message that the days of stranding him on planets was over. 

Rush smiled wryly. “At any rate, Chloe has an instinctive grasp of what to do to plot courses with the FTL, but she doesn't have enough of a math background, the vocabulary, for example, to explain very well her solutions. Eli and I are helping her with that, and she's marvelous at picking up conventional maths. Still.”

“You want to be able to do it, too. Makes sense. You know the question, you know the answer. You've just got to recreate the steps to get there,” He found another knotted mass of muscle near Rush's neck and started working it.

“Exactly.” Rush made a low sound, almost a groan, as Everett's thumb circled the knot. Everett wondered if Rush would make the same sound if Everett was to use his thumb like that to tease him, to loosen the tight muscles of his anus so Everett could slip fingers inside that heat, working him until he was ready for Everett's dick. 

With an effort, he banished that image. When he felt he could speak without giving away just how turned on he'd been, he asked, “What about Eli? Are you having him work on this, too?”

“Eli will probably springboard off of my work, and master it before me. He's very talented, a genius really, but a bit directionless.” He gave a soft ahh, as the knot released and Everett moved his hands back up to Rush's shoulders, massaging them again.

“And you? What's your math weakness?” Everett asked, wondering if Rush would even admit to having any difficulties. What was it Eli had said about Rush? Something about the man having an ego the size of a bus?

Rush sighed. “Eh, I'm no genius, to start with. I have to plod on through, although I'm quick enough compared to most others.” He went silent, and straightened his shoulders, making Everett flash on an image of Rush in front of a firing squad. He just knew that Rush would face execution with the same stiff posture. He said, “I don't question my premises enough. Eli does. It's what allowed us to finally dial the ninth chevron, you know. I used the conventional assumption about the point of origin, but Eli wasn't invested in that explanation and wondered if Earth was the point of origin. And he was right.”

“So, if Eli hadn't come up with the missing final bit of the puzzle, we'd all be back on Earth right now? You'd have let Riley dial home?” 

Rush tensed under his hands.“I know you gained a head injury when we were thrown through the gate, Colonel, so maybe you have some excuse for not initially comprehending the problem, but I've explained it to you since then so you just must not believe me.” He huffed out a short, soft laugh that had nothing to do with humor. “You're not alone. I don't think anyone much outside of the science team understands that I saved our lives by dialing the ninth chevron.”

“Rush.” He sounded skeptical to his own ears, and from the way Rush frowned, apparently he came across that way to the other man. Rush looked down and to the side, but not before Everett saw something in his eyes that looked like hurt, the window in front of them acting as a mirror.

“Never mind.” Rush said, softly. Dangerously. “You want me to confess my shortcomings, do you? Why don't you just tell them to me instead? You must have a fairly long list by now.” 

Oh no. Not going there. Rush would clam up or start a shouting match. 

He bent down till his lips were almost touching Rush's right ear. “You're a lot of work, Nicholas. But I think you're worth it.”

He straightened back up. “I didn't mean to sound like I don't believe you.”

Rush gave a dismissive wave of his hand and didn't say anything. Everett decided to leave it alone.

“What was it you wanted my help with?” Everett stilled his hands on Rush's shoulders. It would be so easy to slide them down inside the layers of clothing Rush wore and play with the man's nipples. He'd sucked on them before, making them stand up and causing Rush to arch his back helplessly. 

Good thing he had self control. 

Sliding his hands down on either side of Rush's spine until he'd reached the middle of Rush's back, he began slowly, slowly working his way up again, and settled in at the first ridge of tight muscles. He wondered if Rush had ever asked for muscle relaxers from the SGC infirmary. Probably not. He knew he hadn't been prescribed any when they'd been at Icarus. Doctor Simms had always kept him informed on the medical condition of any of his patients. Rush would have had to sign a release of his health information to the SGC in order to be employed there; he probably thought it was none of the SGC's business so Everett could see him staying away from getting medical care on base.

Rush said, “You can review the lessons I'm planning on doing with a kino on the ship's systems and consoles. We need more trained bridge staff. The science team has been stretched too thin as it is, doing bridge duty as well as the research on the ship or repairs.”

“Like the ones on the bridge systems that you handed over to us after we found out you'd broken the master code?” Rush giving them to his science staff had gone a long way towards Everett believing that eventually Rush had intended to tell them about the bridge, mitigating his anger somewhat.

Rush nodded.“Yes. The science team already had a good grasp of the ship's systems, so I didn't make them as instructional as I'm planning on doing with these new ones. They're for the crew who don't have a strong science background or their specialties lie in other areas. Barnes, Inman, Greer, Morrison, Walters, a load more of your soldiers and the civilian staff that have shown me they're intelligent, they should be trained and doing bridge shifts.”

“You looked exhausted on those videos.” 

Eyebrows raised, Rush answered, “Yes, well, did you think it was easy to learn the bridge while keeping up appearances with you lot?”

“No. Guess not.” Everett gave him a small shake, just enough to send a message of disapproval. “Although we knew you were up to something. You thought showing us your math corridor would satisfy our suspicions, but it didn't.” 

Rush shrugged. “Oh, well.”

Everett ruffled his hair again and Rush sighed theatrically. “Why do you do that?”

“It's fun, Ace.”

“I'm not your little brother.”

Everett laughed. “Which is good, because I wouldn't do with my brother the things I've done with you. That I still want to do with you. To you.”

“But you're able to control those desires, obviously,” Rush said thoughtfully, “since you're no molesting me, even with touching me like this. We are making progress, Colonel. This was the right way to proceed, I'm sure of it.”

“What about you?” He grinned, catching Rush's eyes in the reflection. “Still feeling like doing wicked wayward things to me?” 

“Aye, I do.” The smile on his face was impish, an expression Everett wasn't sure he'd ever seen before on Rush. If the other man had smiled at his wife that way, dimples and all, it was no wonder she'd married him. 

“Can you keep your hands to yourself?”

Rush shook his head. “Not yet. But soon, I think. I don't feel like I'm going to jump out of my skin if I don't kiss you.”

“But you're not ready to take a chance on say, giving me a back rub. Because, I could use one.”

“No, that'd be a bad idea right now. That's why I'm letting you control the touching we're doing now.” Smiling, Rush added, “You'd best hold my hands again when we're in bed tonight, and I should sleep on my side facing away from you.”

Everett said, mildly, “I could tie your hands together.”

Rush flinched. “No.” The smile was wiped from his face now, and Everett felt like a jerk. He'd obviously hit a nerve.

“Bad memories?”

Rush nodded. Everett waited for him to elaborate, to confide in him, but after a few minutes of silence, he realized Rush wasn't going to tell him. He could make a few guesses, though. The Nakai and Kiva were pretty good candidates for restraining Rush and hurting him.

TJ and Camile had tried to get him to talk about his time being a prisoner of the Nakai and the Lucian Alliance. When they'd thrown in the towel, Everett had given it a shot. Rush was as unhelpful and close-mouthed as usual, though. He'd actually learned more from Chloe about the trouble with nightmares Rush had than from Rush himself. 

“So, you want me to listen to the new training videos and tell you if I understood them, correct?” Rush was too quiet and he was tensing up again. Everett wanted to derail him from thinking about being tortured, if the man wasn't going to actually talk about it. He'd had counseling after some fucked up missions, oh, seven or eight times. Talking could help, even if it was painful to do so. 

“Exactly. Destiny's systems are complicated, immensely so. People need to be trained before being turned loose to man stations.” Rush sighed and his reflection in the window looked troubled.

“Hey, I get it, you know,” Everett said carefully. “Why you kept the bridge secret for so long. You were worried untrained people would screw things up. You were afraid I wouldn't let you control who had access to consoles. That I wouldn't let you on the bridge.”

“Yes. That's correct. We talked about this, you know, after you'd...” Rush made a gesture with his fist towards his own face. “I knew you didn't trust me. I couldn't take the chance that you'd ban me from the bridge and not let me train the science staff. I was afraid of the mistakes that might be made that would damage the ship.” Rush looked somber. “Not that I didn't make my own mistakes. Serious mistakes.” 

“The shuttle?” Everett said, again so carefully.

“Yes.”

“I know why I think it was your fault, but I'd like to hear why you think it was your fault,” Everett asked trying his best to keep his voice nonjudgmental.

Everett wasn't sure Rush would answer that, but the other man took a deep breath and fixing his eyes on the floor of the bridge, began talking.

“I overlooked how the changing conditions on the planet might have affected the turbulence the shuttle would experience. Dr. Franklin pointed it out to to me.”

“Franklin? You mean his projection?”

“Yes,” Rush was almost whispering, his voice pained. “He was very helpful, actually, while I was learning the bridge. After he warned me, I contacted Lieutenant Scott and informed him there would be severe turbulence. I debated telling him to come back, but we needed supplies desperately and so I weighed our needs against the risks.” He clenched his hands together into fists.” I thought they were still in safe enough parameters. According to the data bank, they were. I was wrong.”

Everett took a deep breath. “So that was the mistake you made? You messed up your calculations?”

“Aye, I didn't take into enough consideration that the shuttle's condition wasn't ideal. I should have.” Rush looked miserable and guilty in the window reflection. “It was my fault, Colonel.”

“You went back and refigured things, didn't you? After they crashed.” Everett stopped his massage, and let his hands rest on Rush's shoulders. 

Rush nodded, looking downward.

“That wasn't your mistake.”

Rush's eyes lifted and Everett gently turned the chair around so they were facing each other. Rush's eyes met his, confusion playing out on his expression.

“Your mistake was not telling _me_ about the turbulence and the risks. If you had, then that decision would have been on me, not you. Not you, Rush.”

Rush worried his lip, but stayed silent. Everett knew what he was thinking, though.

“I know. You felt you couldn't trust me, that I wasn't capable of making tough decisions. I was crawling into the bottle and letting my personal problems effect my command. You could see it, Matt saw it, hell, probably everyone on the ship could see it. And that was my mistake, Rush. Losing your trust in my command. In me. And for that, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Nicholas.”

Rush looked him steadily in the eyes but didn't say anything.

Everett pulled him up out of the seat, but kept his hands on the other man's shoulders. “No. That's not quite correct, is it? I never had your trust to lose, not even back on Icarus.”

Rush shook his head. “No,” he said, shading his voice back into a whisper. “I didn't trust you.”

“Do I have it now? At least about the crew and the ship?”

Rush nodded.

Everett drew him into a tight hug, and after a moment or two, Rush hugged him back.

 

* * *

 

**The Pentagon**

“Keep up, Rush!” David said firmly, if quietly, as he pulled him away from yet another exhibit on the main corridor. “You're going to make us late to see O'Neill.”

Rush had been all eyes as they'd driven from the safe house to Washington, his attention focused on taking in the countryside and the city rolling past his window. When David had unbuckled him from his booster seat in the backseat of the car, Rush had stared up at the sky after getting out of the car, then had run over to the grass, crouching down and running his hands along the top of the lawn. 

He'd acted like he'd never seen such things as the sun or the sky or plants before, and it took a moment for David to remember that like this, a little boy, Rush had only been allowed to go up to the top of Cheyenne Mountain and outside exactly once. Evidently, his real memories about nature were buried still. 

Once he'd herded Rush inside the Pentagon, he'd tried to hurry him along to Homeworld Command. Rush stalled, Rush doubled back to see something that caught his attention, Rush tried to read every plaque they passed. 

Rush was a pain in the ass.

Walking beside him, Rush's eyes darting right and left, they actually made it forty feet down the hall, before Rush skipped away from him and stopped in front of yet another exhibit across the hall. This time it was of two soldiers from different eras. When David caught back up to Rush he was looking between the two statues, apparently noting the differences in the uniforms.

David looked at his watch and swore softly. It took only about seven or eight minutes to walk from one point to another in the Pentagon, but that didn't take into consideration the gawking Rush was doing.

He hated being late. It was unprofessional. Rush wasn't a child, not really, but he certainly was acting like one this morning. He could just hear himself making excuses to O'Neill. _Rush was curious about everything and had to stop every five feet and look at or touch something. Sorry, sir, for being late._

Right. O'Neill's eyebrows would go up at David's admission that he couldn't control someone who wasn't even big enough to ride in a car without a booster seat. The general wasn't on board with this mission, anyway. If it wasn't for the IOA's and the President's push for answers from Rush, O'Neill would have scrapped it and sent Rush back to Siler. 

He couldn't afford to give O'Neill any ammunition to shoot down the mission or replace him.

He grabbed Rush's hand and tugged him towards him. He bent down and whispered in Rush's ear, “You're going to hold my hand, understand? We're not stopping to look at anything else. Remember what I told you about Sergeant Siler.”

Rush looked up at him and his eyes started to shine with tears. “Don't you start crying. Just do what you're told and Siler will be fine.”

They walked briskly along, Rush trotting to keep up with David's much longer stride. They reached the elevator and he ushered Rush inside the crowded car. Impatiently, he pushed the button for the fifth floor. 

Before the door closed completely, a hand stopped it and the doors re-opened. A dark-haired woman in her thirties entered, and David stepped back to make more room for her. She smiled at him, looking at the name on his chest and his stars.

“Thank you, General Telford.” Her smile grew wider when she saw Rush holding onto his hand. “Oh, is this your son? He's adorable.”

He smiled politely back. He wasn't about to get into why he was holding onto a child who wasn't related to him. 

Rush looked like he wanted to correct her and he squeezed the small hand in his warningly. Rush bit his lip but didn't sign anything or shake his head no.

“Sweetie, do you want to push the button for me?” The woman was wasting everybody's time, but he'd come off as a dick if he told her to just hit the damn button herself.

Rush nodded. The woman said, “Push number four. Do you know which one that is, honey?”

Rush nodded again, but his time he threw in an exaggerated eyeroll. David let go of his hands and he reached over and pushed the button for her floor. The elevator started to rise.

“You got it right,” the woman said. “You must be good with numbers.”

Rush shook his head emphatically yes and his hands flew in different configurations back and forth across his chest and then he pointed to himself. David had no idea what he'd just said but he guessed it was probably along the lines of that he was a genius in math.

The woman startled, her bright red lips forming an “O” as she got that Rush couldn't speak. She glanced at David. 

“He said he's good with math,” David said dryly.

The woman smiled at Rush again. “Are you in kindergarten?”

Rush shook his head no. 

“Oh, then pre-school?”

Rush repeated the gesture, and then looked at David.

“He's tutored.” 

“I see. Going with daddy to his job today? Aren't you the lucky boy.”

Rush looked confused and glanced again at David, his eyes worried.

The elevator came to a halt on the third floor and the woman was distracted from asking Rush any more questions when a friend of hers entered after half the car emptied out. They chatted away until the fourth floor was reached and then they both stepped out, along with the rest of the passengers.

The woman turned and waved to Rush. “Goodbye, sweetie. Be a good boy for your daddy today.”

He waved back at her and when the door closed, leaving them alone, David said, “Relax. I'm not going to be your daddy.”

Rush looked relieved, which, perversely, annoyed the crap out of David. 

* * *

He held onto Rush until they were safely in O'Neill's waiting room and then he dropped the warm small hand and pointed at a chair. “Go sit down.”

Rush did, and started swinging his legs back and forth. He was too short to reach the floor. 

David kept an eye on him while he gave his name to the general's secretary, an airman with short, tight auburn curls and freckles across his face.

The airman gave him a textbook salute and said, “General Telford, I'll let General O'Neill know you're here. We have coffee, if you'd care for some?” 

“No, thanks.” 

He took a seat next to Rush, who was staring around the room. The airman approached with a legal pad and a pen. He crouched down in front of Rush and smiled at him. 

“Hey, would you like some paper to draw on?”

Rush nodded, and the airman handed it over to him. “I'm sorry we don't have any crayons. I'll make sure we have some for the next time you visit, that is, if you're coming back?”

Rush flipped his hand back and forth. 

“He doesn't talk,” David said. “You can go back to your duties, Airman. He'll be fine.”

“Yes, sir,” and he patted Rush on the leg before standing back up. 

Rush stared at the paper and stuck the end of the pen in his mouth. David ignored him when he bent over the pad and started writing.

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, he was still waiting on O'Neill. He didn't know if this was deliberate on O'Neill's part, or if something was up. 

Rush was still filling page after page with whatever he was drawing. He'd turned and was sitting cross-legged now in the chair, his back towards David, wriggling around every few minutes. 

David touched the flashdrive he'd tucked into his dress uniform jacket pocket, feeling its outline through the material. He'd come prepared to defend his strategy of keeping Rush and mining his subconscious. On that flashdrive were the videos of dreams the small person sitting next to him had experienced, those which were clearly the memories of the adult he and O'Neil had known. The techs hadn't recorded any dreams about his life as a supposed child.

The dreams they'd dredged up with the memory device had been graphic. One showed Rush running through Destiny's corridors, showers of sparks heralding the oncoming destruction, then he was staring at the neural interface chair on the other timeline Destiny; another was of Rush strangling a Nakai, his fingers clutching around the spindly blue neck; in one Rush was again running at full speed, but this time it was through jungle terrain towards the stargate, vegetation brushing against his body, interposed with images of Lieutenant Scott unconscious, a blue growth on his arm. 

In another dream, Rush was in a tank of water on a Nakai ship, the telepathic comm devise on the side of his forehead, staring at one of the aliens, his brow furrowed in concentration as the alien appeared to hiss at him. Rush was adamantly shaking his head in fierce denial.

In the last dream, Rush was in the embarkation room on Destiny, walking slowly away from the wormhole as it closed behind him, his clothes and face and hands filthy, his hair twisted into tangles, only to stop and sway in front of Young. Young steadied him, his face betraying his concern, and Rush exhaustedly handed over his gun, no doubt the one he'd used to kill Simeon. Young unfastened Rush's backpack, pulled it off, and handed it and the weapon to an airman, then took him by the arm and together they walked at a snail's pace through Destiny's corridors, Young's hand on Rush's elbow keeping him from falling down when Rush tripped over his own feet. He stumbled a lot before Young hauled Rush into his quarters and the dream ended.

David wondered if that last dream was actually true. Maybe it was how Rush wanted things to be between himself and Young, because, really, Young being so careful with Rush seemed out of character. Then he remembered how Young had acted in the shower room when David had been trying to question Rush. He'd been overprotective about the little weasel. If anything, Young should have helped put pressure on Rush to talk, not actually threaten David with bringing up charges if he didn't turn Rush loose.

He'd look into this, see if the relationship between Young and Rush was changing. At the very least, if Young was now friendly with Rush, he wouldn't want to ally himself with David when it came to removing Rush from Destiny. He really didn't understand why Young had changed his mind, insisting that Rush should stay on the ship once Rush had turned back up like a bad penny.

Rush needed to be removed from Destiny. Now, McKay, he would be David's first pick to replace Rush. Carter would excellent, too. Not Bill Lee or Jay Felger. Neither of them were tough enough to be useful on Destiny. Radek Zelenka, he would be fine, too. He wasn't as fast as McKay, but then few scientists were. And Zelenaka, for all of his baby owl look, had grown up a survivor. He'd be able to adjust to the limited resources on Destiny.

But McKay, in spite of his personality issues, would bring such a wide amount of expertise to the mission. Not only because of his double Ph.D's in mechanical engineering and astrophysics, he knew Ancient forwards and backwards and he'd kept Atlantis afloat despite numerous problems the city had faced. McKay's ability to think fast on his feet was legendary. Admittedly, John Sheppard had to ride herd on the genius, but David would take over that job, if McKay joined Destiny's crew.

And after Rush, McKay wouldn't faze any of the science team. His famous ranting at his minions would just roll off their backs.

Most importantly, McKay wasn't a liar. He could be trusted. He doubted that anybody on Destiny truly trusted Rush anymore, not after the lies the man had told them.

He should meet with McKay, continue to feel him out, entice him with the treasure trove that Destiny could be in the right hands. McKay's ego would swell that he was the top choice to rescue Destiny. 

Yes. He would continue to plant seeds in McKay's head about joining the crew. By the time a reliable way to gate to Destiny was in place, McKay's curiosity would be brimming over. It wouldn't take much to tip him over into taking Rush's place. He'd gone to Atlantis, after all, and at the time that had been a one way trip.

* * *

 

“General O'Neill can see you now, sir” the redheaded airman said, coming to a respectful halt in front of David. Glancing at his watch, David gritted his teeth. O'Neill had made him wait for an hour and a half. 

Rush didn't look up from his tablet. The name O'Neill wasn't jogging any buried memories, it seemed.

“Hey, buddy, can I see what you've been drawing?” Rush raised his head and tilted it to the side, in a bird like motion as he considered the request. Then he nodded.

David stood up and the airmen moved over to crouch next to Rush.

Rush held up the yellow legal tablet and the man whistled. “Wow! I was expecting something like pictures of your house, or maybe dinosaurs, but not this”

David glanced at the tablet and then snatched it out of Rush's hands. 

The printing was blocky, of kindergarten quality, and larger than what could be fit onto a line. The entire page was covered in symbols. A handful included standard math symbols, but most were strange, written in what he recognized as maybe Ancient, and others in what looked more like pictograph symbols that were totally foreign to him.

“What is all this?” he asked Rush, flipping back through page after page of the weird shit. 

Rush just shrugged. 

“Um, sir, General O'Neill has a very busy schedule...” the airman said.

“Thank you, Airman,” David replied, and took a few steps towards O'Neill's door. He stopped when he realized Rush hadn't moved. He went back and snagged Rush's arm and pulled him out of the seat. He hissed, “C'mon, Rush, you're coming, too.” He kept a tight grip on him as the redheaded airman ushered them into O'Neill's office.

“David. Long time no see,” O'Neill said sardonically, behind his desk.

“General,” David answered. O'Neill looked at Rush, raising his eyebrows, and David dropped his hand from Rush's arm. 

O'Neill pushed up from his desk and moved a couple of feet in front of Rush, who was looking around the office with wide eyes. He knelt down on one knee and Rush stopped gawking at the yo-yo on the desk and focused on the man in front of him.

“Hello,” O'Neill said, his voice friendly and open, but David wasn't fooled by the man's tone of voice or the welcoming smile on his face. O'Neill was a calculating son-of-a-bitch, his instincts legendary. He would be assessing Rush, never mind the grandpa impersonation. 

Rush's fingers moved in a small wave of acknowledgment, but there was no spark of recognition in his eyes. In fact, he returned to looking at the yo-yo.

“Want to see that?” O'Neill asked.

Rush nodded. 

“Okay. My name's Jack. What's your name?”

Rush's fingers moved in five distinct motions in front of his chest.

“Let me see. Daniel made me learn some sign language, back in my SG1 days. You know, in case we couldn't or shouldn't talk. I think that was M,A,L,I,N. Was I right?” O'Neill reached over, picked up the yo-yo and tossed it up and down. 

Rush nodded, his eyes following the trajectory, and held out his hand.

“So, is your name Malin?”

Rush nodded again and wiggled his fingers impatiently. 

“Not Nicholas Rush?”

Rush shook his head no, and stepped closer to O'Neill. He paused, obviously thinking something through, made another motion and held out his hand again.

“Was that please?” O'Neill asked. 

Rush nodded and O'Neill laughed. “Okay. Here.” He handed over the toy and watched Rush examine it and pull the string loose. He dangled the yo-yo and looked disappointed. 

“There's a trick to it,” O'Neill said. “What to see?”

Rush nodded emphatically, his face lit with curiosity.

“Sure. But help an old guy up, okay, Malin? My knees ain't what they used to be.” David felt like rolling his eyes. O'Neill and his knees. David knew the general's knees were just fine after the surgery he'd had done, but he was still milking it. 

O'Neill beckoned Rush closer. The boy moved next to him, and O'Neill put one big hand on Rush's thin shoulder. He stood up, with Rush pushing against O'Neill.

O'Neill perched on the edge of his desk and held out his hand for the yo-yo. 

Rush was entranced for the next ten minutes as O'Neill demonstrated his prowess with a yo-yo, the toy lighting up and making a whistling sound as he made it spin and snap. Then he slipped the line over Rush's small finger and gave him some basic instructions. 

When Rush made it spin down and then back up, he looked at O'Neill and grinned. O'Neill ruffled his hair. “Want to keep it?” O'Neill asked, and Rush nodded again, suddenly looking shy. 

David wanted to protest that encouraging Rush to play like a child was counter-productive for breaking through to his adult memories, but a look from O'Neill silenced him. 

“I play with yo-yos and I'm all grown up,” he said, in a stage whisper to Rush. “And I'm General Telford's boss, so I'm going to order him to let you keep it when you go back with him today. Here, why don't you go back to where the chairs are and practice. I need to talk to General Telford for a few minutes, and we're waiting on a couple of people to join us. Then we'll talk some more, you and me.”

 

* * * 

 

O'Neill waited until his aide had taken Rush by the hand and walked him back into the waiting area, then when the door closed he looked at David, his expression forbidding.

“Cute kid. I know you politicked the fuck out of this one, David; got the IOA to back your play and used the Widow Armstrong to get the president to endorse it. So let's hear it. You got anything to prove you can dig Rush's memories out of Malin's little head?”

David laid down the legal pad on the desk. “Rush just did all of this in your waiting room. I can't make heads or tails of it, but you might get somebody like McKay or Carter to take a look.” He reached into his pocket and brought out the flashdrive. “I've got a handful of Rush's memories from dreams right here.” He tossed it to O'Neill.

O'Neill caught it with one hand. “So his dreams show why Rush came back? What you're sure he's here to warn us about?”

Taking a deep breath, and sternly reminding himself that O'Neill was his commanding officer, David said. “No. But my team and I are making progress. We can increase the intensity of the memory device. Try hypnosis. Keep exposing him to people, situations that could jar his memory.”

“Or you could fuck up a six-year-old,” O'Neill said, making a distasteful face.

“I'm not taken in by Rush's size and apparent age,” David said emphatically. “He's not really a little boy, but he's damn good at manipulating people into believing he is.”

O'Neill spread out his hands. “I'm not seeing it, David. That small person in the other room, I'm thinking he's a kid. And sure, I have no trouble believing he might have submerged memories of his former life, but you've got no proof that they mean squat to the security of this world.”

David looked hard at O'Neill. “I know Rush. I know him. And it means something that a man like him, who cut his ties to Earth, came back. I have six months to get results.”

“No you don't. The IOA and I have been... chatting.” O'Neill shrugged. “There's been some changes. I want to see Rush – Malin – every week. If you don't have something that's actual evidence of your theory by three months, then he's going back to the Silers. Oh, and I arranged for my own eyes and ears to be involved in your little project. She answers directly to me, not to you, David.”

“You can't just have your watchdog jump the chain of command, General O'Neill.”

“She's not in the chain of command. She's a civilian.”

“The IOA will have something to say about this. I want to talk to Strom,” David said. He didn't exactly like O'Neill, but he respected him, and they'd always had a decent working relationship. He hadn't realized O'Neill would go to this length to have some control over the mission. 

“I thought you might. I've arranged a conference call with him and with Mr. Woolsey.” O'Neill picked up a pencil off his desk and started twirling it around his fingers. 

Damn. He'd been afraid O'Neill would call in his markers with Woolsey

“Jack, Rush wants us to figure this out; he came here, to us, for help. Don't get distracted because he looks like a boy. Behind that kid's face is the same little bastard we both know.” 

O'Neill shook his head. “You might be right about the information, that's the only reason I'm going along with this for now. But you're wrong about Malin being Rush. I've talked with Siler and Mary and Doctor Lam and Daniel. He's a child, and he's been confused about what you want, hasn't he?”

“He won't be, once his memories aren't so buried.”

“You've got three months. Take care of him, David. He has a family waiting for him.” O'Neill dropped the pencil, his eyes unmasked, his smart-aleck at the back of the class manner replaced with a black-op commando's threat assessment look.

“Believe me, I'll be glad to send him to Siler when this is done.” He made himself give O'Neill a friendly smile. He would go along with what O'Neill wanted and not burn any bridges at this point, Anyway, O'Neill would change his mind once David had the proof he needed. 

“Have a seat.” O'Neill looked at his watch. “It's time to chat with the IOA.”

* * *

 

Strom really did have the face of a thug, David thought, as the bald, bearded image abruptly disappeared from the screen. He could intimidate his opposition like one, too, but Woolsey, for all of his fussy accountant demeanor, had definitely won that round. 

Steepling his fingers, Richard Woolsey said, “So we're agreed on all points. General Telford, General O'Neill? I suggest weekly meetings to discuss progress,” on the screen Woolsey shifted to focus on him, “or lack of progress on the boy regaining Rush's memories. Please copy me with all pertinent data and reports. And I should like to see the boy for myself. Could he be brought into the room?”

Figures. As the IOA head honcho on Atlantis, Woolsey had crossed paths with Rush. David had heard that Rush lit up the city like Sheppard had, so Woolsey might have wanted to have Rush re-assigned there if David had been successful in getting Rush off the expedition. 

Of course, if David had managed to get his brainwashed way at the time, once Rush had been ousted from the fortress that was Icarus, then the Lucian Alliance would have snatched him up. That didn't mean his reasons for not wanting Rush to be on the team to explore the ninth chevron weren't sound. The man had been like Naquadria, the smallest jostle might have caused him to explode.

He doubted that three years in stasis had improved Rush's mental stability. 

“David,” O'Neill said. “Shoo. Go down to your office and get some work done. I'll page you to come pick up Malin later. I haven't shown him all my yo-yo tricks yet, and I'll buy him some lunch at McDonalds. I bet he's never had a Happy Meal, and I could do with a Big Mac.”

David wanted to grit his teeth. “I wouldn't want him to take up your valuable time, Jack.”

“Oh, I don't mind,” O'Neill said, shooting him the same kind of look a shark must do before it decides to attack or not. “In fact, I insist. Even demand.” O'Neill made a gesture towards the door. “Take a break from babysitting him. Kids can wear out a parent.”

“I'm not pretending to be his father, Jack,”

“No. You aren't, are you?” O'Neill looked hard at him. “So let's say he's faking all the kid stuff. Doesn't change that you're responsible for taking care of him.”

David bristled because yeah, he could read between the lines of what O'Neill was saying. “I haven't abused him and I won't. I am laying down ground rules. You remember what Rush was like. Don't tell me that they aren't necessary.”

“I remember that you had a grudge against him. That cluster fuck of a mission to Nirti's lab, you held him responsible for the deaths.”

“He was responsible,” David said harshly.

“Landry didn't see it that way, and he was no fan of Rush's.” O'Neill leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk.

David held his hands out palms up, going for placating. “What do you want, Jack? My word that I'm not going to hurt him, no matter that I think he's a corrupt little bastard that will always do what's best for himself, no matter how many other people get trampled because of him? You've got it.”

“I want more than your word. I've asked Mary Dupree to stay with Malin and take care of him, If she agrees, she'll report directly to me. You can't give her orders, David.”

“If she agrees. She's not already on board then. Who is she, why her?” He leaned forward in his chair, curious.

“She was Doctor Amanda Perry's personal nurse and caretaker. She's more than qualified to look after one little special needs child. Oh, and she's fluent in sign language. More importantly, she won't take any crap from you, David.”

“She really wants to stay 24/7 with Rush? Or is she going to be off on the weekends and nights?” David asked. Damn O'Neill and his suspicious mind. He wasn't happy about having someone not on the team looking over his shoulder.

“If she agrees, then she'll be there the whole time. She wants to meet Malin first before she decides.” O'Neill looked at his watch. “She'll be along shortly.”

David had placed this woman now, remembered her beside Perry's wheelchair. Tall, beautiful, and very much a no nonsense type. “Perry and Rush were close. So she must have known Rush, back when he worked out of the SGC.”

Woolsey interrupted them on the screen. “Fascinating as it is to be a fly on the wall here, I do have other meetings.”

David had forgotten Woolsey was still connected to the video conference.

O'Neill said expansively, “And we shouldn't keep you from them. David, get lost. Richard, hang on. I'll get the kid.”

O'Neill ushered him out of his inner office, and he saw Rush sitting on the red-haired airman's lap, playing something on the computer, the yo-yo on the desk. 

He didn't trust himself to not just yank Rush away, which would not go over well with O'Neill, so he contented himself with giving Rush a warning look. “I'll be back,” he ground out, and strode out of the office.

Jack O'Neill was biased, that was clear. It was SGC legend that he had a weakness for kids. He'd been an uncle to the little girl Doctor Fraiser had adopted and had put his career on the line to help alien kids before. David knew about O'Neill's son. Tragic, that the boy had died from playing with his father's gun, but Rush was not any kind of substitute for the child O'Neill had lost.

He hoped that eventually O'Neill would see that for himself and start supporting him instead of being the obstructive jackass he'd been today.

* * * 

Mary had just returned to her seat in O'Neill's waiting room when a small boy tore out of the inner office. He looked around eagerly, but when he didn't see what he was obviously looking for he dashed to the door and threw it open and ran out.

O'Neill strode out of his office, saw her and motioned for her to follow along as he went after the child.

The boy was standing in the middle of the corridor, looking lost. O'Neill went to him and picked him up, whispering something to him. The boy didn't fight against being held. Instead he laid his head down on O'Neill's shoulder. He was silent, but tears were flooding down his cheeks.

Mary approached them and O'Neill motioned her to come nearer. “Let's get out of here,” he said quietly. “The kid got upset when he heard your first name and thought his mother, Siler's wife, had come for him.” He started walking down the corridor and she paced along beside him, watching him, watching the small child. He looked to be about four or five, but his actual age was closer to six, she'd been told.

“So this is the boy?” O'Neill had explained about Doctor Rush ascending and returning as a mute child. He was at the center of a storm of political maneuvering, and O'Neill wanted her to make sure the boy was treated fairly. 

“Yes.” O'Neill patted the boy on the back. “Malin, this is Mary Dupree. She has the same name as your mom, doesn't she?”

Malin nodded. He stared at her, tears still falling, and she smiled at him. “Hello, Malin.” She signed it, too and Malin signed back a half hearted hello. She looked for Doctor Rush's features in the small face, and identified the dark, distinctive eyes and pointed chin. There was no look of recognition in those eyes, though. He didn't remember her. He wouldn't remember Amanda, either then, although maybe that was a blessing. Amanda had loved Nicholas Rush, had loved him for a very long time, but from what Amanda had confided in her, only after Amanda had switched her consciousness with Camile Wray's and gone to Destiny had Doctor Rush finally opened his eyes to what Amanda felt for him. 

Doctor Rush was not an easy man to get to know. He was pragmatic and skeptical and kept to himself for the most part. He was impatient, with people, with anything that made him wait, with the solutions he sought with his physics and mathematics. Most of all, he was impatient with himself. He'd learned somewhere to cover up that impatience with a pained sort of patience, but it fooled very few people and they resented him for making them feel inadequate. He had no patience for fools or what he considered ridiculous military rules and bureaucracy. They had that in common, and sometimes he'd caught her eye over something both of them felt was unnecessarily obstructive. But he had always seen Amanda, and not her disabilities. After his wife died, Amanda had been good to him, and he'd sought her company for comfort. 

This was not the first time she'd seen Nicholas Rush crying, after all. 

She looked at the expression on Malin's face and thought of what O'Neill had told her, that Malin would be away from his adoptive family for three to six months, staying with people who were treating him primarily as a science experiment. The head of the team, General Telford, was convinced that Malin wasn't really a little boy, that he was an adult hiding in a child's body. O'Neill had told her that his good friends, Mary and Sly Siler, Malin's adoptive parents, knew that Malin was a child. So did SG1 and Doctor Lam. Doctor Lam had closely monitored Amanda's health and Mary trusted her opinion. 

Amanda Perry had been her charge, her responsibility, and her friend. This heartbroken child, or adult lost within the child, needed a protector, and for Amanda, she would agree to O'Neill's proposal. 

She'd been told of how Doctor Rush had trekked across a desert planet to hunt down the man who'd killed Amanda while she was in Ginn's body. That he'd ignored that Destiny would fly away without him in order to kill that Lucian Alliance bastard, risking being stranded. 

She'd fiercely approved of his actions. 

“General?” O'Neill stopped his long strides. “I'll take the job.” She stepped close to Malin and gently laid her hand on the back of his head. He'd quit crying but remained limp against O'Neill's chest, legs wrapped around him. Malin looked at the beads hanging in her hair and tiredly reached out and touched one. She felt her heart open to him. He would be her responsibility, her charge; she would be his protector against things he couldn't possibly understand. 

O'Neill flashed her his charming grin. “Thanks, Mary. I owe you one. What do you say we get this little guy something to eat and go outside to the courtyard. He can play and we'll talk.”

* * *

 

It was hours before David got the word to return to O'Neill's office. He wanted to clench his hands when he was ushered into the inner office because Rush was sitting on O'Neill's lap watching the Simpsons on the computer. He didn't. He wouldn't give O'Neill the satisfaction of seeing him frustrated that O'Neill had firmly joined the “Rush is a child” camp. And...there was just something _wrong_ about seeing Rush like this with O'Neill. It made his stomach turn. 

O'Neill paused the program.

“David.” 

“Jack.”

“Ah.” O'Neill arched his eyebrows and . “I was telling Malin about how Siler used to save my ass back in the day and how I've left him my entire Simpson collection. Can you believe Malin's never even seen the show? Probably his mother's doing. I sent an airman with Mary Dupree to get her stuff. She's going back with you this afternoon.”

“Well, Rush can wait with me at my office. He's taken up enough of your time. Have Ms. Dupree meet us at the Mall exit.” David motioned for Rush to come with him. 

Rush looked up at O'Neill, and shook his head. O'Neill laid a hand on Rush's hair. “We talked about this, kiddo. Remember?”

His lower lip pushed out, but Rush nodded instead of throwing a fit. 

“C'mon, Rush. Time to go.”

“Not so fast, David.” O'Neill pointed to his desk and David saw the notebook Rush had used earlier. “I had this sent to McKay and Carter. It's programming. The interesting part isn't that Malin used some unconventional programming language or even that he also did it in Ancient. McKay thinks that he showed us Nakai programming with the third set of goobly-gook.”

“Did it change your mind about him?” But David knew it hadn't. 

“Nope. He's still just a kid. But the interesting thing is that McKay is convinced that Rush didn't know how to do Nakai programming. So, where did Malin pick it up?”

David sat down, thoughtful. “Rush was studying a wrecked Nakai scout ship when he was taken by the aliens. He must have learned it there.”

Jack clicked his tongue. “Thought of that and McKay says no. Rush barely had time to learn how to pull up the star maps and menus before those blue guys showed up, according to what he was told when he was on the ship.”

“Chloe Armstrong was genetically changed by the Nakai, and that included understanding the math the Nakai use. What if they messed with Rush's mind, too? I know he said he was able to resist them, and Everett had him examined to make sure he wasn't showing the skin changes that Miss Armstrong did, but what if they had broken through his mental defenses? It would be just like him to lie about it and keep it to himself.”

“Possibly. Although with the tight spots that ship's been in if he could have done what Chloe learned to do, I think he would have,” O'Neill said.

“To save his own skin, he would. Maybe he used it secretly?”

“Guess we'll find out when Everett gives us a ring.” O'Neill grinned evilly at him. “So, David, want to watch the Simpsons with us? I'm waiting on Mary D. to come back and translate what Malin has to say about those dreams of his.” 

“Knock yourself out, Jack,” David shot back, rolling his eyes. “I'll be in the waiting room.”

 

* * * 

Mary was sure that the off the cuff nickname Jack O'Neill had thrown at her was going to stick. Mary D., honestly. Malin signed her name that way ever since Jack had first uttered it, when they'd sat at a picnic table in the inner courtyard at the Pentagon and watched Malin doing somersaults and cartwheels on the grass. 

He'd been showing off for them. She'd asked him who had taught him to do cartwheels, and he signed Vala. Mary knew who he meant. Vala Mal Doran of SG1 and, rumor had it, former space pirate and Gou'ald host. The team had adopted Malin as their mascot, O'Neill explained. He'd gotten Malin distracted from missing his parents by the time they'd gone outside. It was a beautiful day, full of sunshine. One thing she would insist on was that Malin be allowed to play outside. O'Neill had told her how Malin had been confined to Cheyenne Mountain since he'd come through the stargate.

She'd called a halt to the gymnastics and settled Malin down to eat. He liked his Chicken McNuggets, didn't like the sauces, ate his apple slices and drank his chocolate milk without fussing.

His face scrunched up in distaste when he saw the toy that came with the Happy Meal. She schooled her expression not to give away that she felt like laughing when he picked up the My Little Pony with a thumb and a finger and studied it. He put it down and flicked it away from him. 

He signed to her that ponies weren't purple and didn't have wings or rainbow colored manes.

O'Neill said, “Yeah, they're kind of silly. Sometimes people like silly things, or fantasy stuff. You know, like horses having wings. You know who really likes My Little Ponies?”

Malin signed, “Who?”

“Teal'c,” O'Neill said. “He can't get enough of them.”

Malin looked at O'Neill like he'd lost his mind. He shook his head vigorously, grinning. 

“No, you're right, It wasn't Teal'c, now that I think about it. It was, um, let me see. Oh, that's right. It was Molly,” O'Neill said teasingly.

Malin made the sign for sister, his expression questioning.

She translated for them, and Malin asked O'Neill if he would give it to his big sister for him.

“Sure thing, kiddo. Any other messages to pass along?”

Malin's hands and fingers flew as he talked about his adoptive family. He became quiet and O'Neill distracted him by promising him cartoons to watch. Apparently his adoptive father and O'Neill were both fans of the Simpsons. 

She left them to arrange the transfer of her luggage, and a stalwart young airman guarding it for her as she returned to O'Neill's office. 

 

* * *

 

General Telford made a right turn onto a two lane road and flashed her the same charming smile he'd been bestowing upon her since they'd left the Pentagon. 

He'd started trying to woo her over to his viewpoint as soon as their seatbelts were buckled but she'd stopped him and told him that they'd talk later. 

She was fairly sure that Malin was going to fall asleep on the trip back to the safe house. She didn't like discussing the debate over him while he could hear it. 

She shifted to look in the back seat. Malin's eyes were closed and his head resting against the back of the car seat. His breathing was slow, the yo-yo loosely held in the cup of his hand.

So. Time to have the talk with General Telford and hammer out how she saw her job. O'Neill had been very clear that she would report directly to him. General Telford could not give her orders.

“Malin's asleep,” she informed General Telford. “I believe there's some things we need to discuss?”

General Telford laughed. It was a warm chuckle, inviting her to join in, and the smile he gave her was charming. He was a charismatic man, and handsome. She'd bet that the civilian scientists working for him were dazzled into being his loyal over-extended following. The airmen under his command wouldn't require charm from their superior officer, but his distinguished record would inspire them. She'd done some checking after O'Neill had called her the day before with his proposal. O'Neill had been clear that General Telford would probably oppose her in how Malin was treated, and she believed in not walking in blind to a situation.

She gave him a polite smile in return. 

He gave her a rueful look. “We do, Ms. Dupree. Let's start with Rush's name. It's important that he be referred to by his real name, Nicholas Rush, not Malin.” He held out one hand to stop any protests from her. “Hear me out. That person in the back seat is a genetic match to Rush. He does not have a normal brain for a child, and just look at his math skills. And then there's the telekinesis and the healing ability. He's got amnesia, and of course he'll respond like a child if he's treated like one. I've got six months of damage to undo, Miss Dupree. If he accepts his name, it might help his memories to return.”

She gave him an unimpressed look. “Doctor Rush was perhaps not a genius in math, but he was the next thing to it. I agree that Malin's skills are unusual in that he somehow retained that knowledge when he retook human form, and that he's kept some memories but he can't consciously recall them and when he dreams he doesn't believe 'that man' is him. I read his records, General. He identified as a child long before anyone realized he'd once been Doctor Rush.” 

“That's true, but there has been progress.” He glanced at her, and she could read his desire to sway her to his side. He made another turn and they drove down the rural road, past barns and ponds and small stands of woods. Finally, he said, “The adult is there, just buried. At first, he was blocked on doing math, but he broke through that. Music was the trigger, music that meant something to him when he'd been an adult. He almost ascended again before he stabilized.”

Mary looked at him skeptically. “Doctor Rush couldn't do the other things you mentioned. If he could have healed Doctor Perry, he would have.”

“Possibly he gained those powers when he was ascended.” He shot her another fast look. “Rush can't talk, but there's no physical reason why. I believe that he skirted the rules ascended beings impose upon each other by returning to human form, and that his amnesia, his inability to talk, are the attempts of the Ancients, or some other ascended beings, to keep Rush from giving us some vital piece of information. From what we know of the ascended Ancients, interference on the material plane is a big taboo for them. Ascended Ancients who have done so have been punished by the others, we do know that.”

“And you think calling him Nicholas Rush will break this block on his memories?” She didn't try to hide her skepticism.

“Not just that. At the safe house there are reminders of his life. I want him to be exposed to that, and not allow him to hide behind this delusion that he's a child. So, no, I don't want him treated like a kid, and frankly, it creeps me out to see people like O'Neill doing it.” He made a shudder of disgust. 

“Why are you so certain that he has a message to deliver?” She didn't understand why he was so adamant on that point.

“You knew Rush,” he said. “He was close to Doctor Perry, but did he ever use the stones to visit her here on Earth?”

“No.”

General Telford sighed the sigh of a prophet ignored by the people he was trying to warn. “He didn't want to return to Earth, and I believe he sabotaged the attempt to dial when Destiny was recharging in a star because he was afraid that he'd be forced to come back.”

He glanced at her, but she only nodded. What he said about Doctor Rush was true, at least the part about not wanting to come back to Earth. She didn't believe he'd have put those poor people on Destiny in danger on purpose, though. Still, she wasn't going to change General Telford's mind about that. 

General Telford went on once he saw she wasn't going to comment. “As an ascended being he would have had the whole damn universe to explore, and he could have studied those structures he'd found in the cosmic background radiation to his glowy heart's content. He came back here instead, and not for fun or some desire to have a second childhood.. He had this thing about making decisions based on the greater good. He gave up ascension – and I know he was fascinated by it, and given that he did ascend, probably hungered for it – for the greater good to warn us of some immense danger.”

“I know he was disliked by a lot of people when he worked at the SGC and he brought that upon himself, but he was a good man. Just not very good at dealing with people, and some of that was because he was grieving so hard for his wife. He would do the right thing, I believe.” She let her voice turn firm. “And I have to do the same.”

General Telford dropped the charm and bit out, “Just what are you saying?”

“You're trying to break him to get him to remember why he returned, as if the child is like a shell around the real him,” she said. “I don't see him that way and I'm not going to be a part of shattering him, because while you think the adult will emerge, I think you're just going to have a traumatized child on your hands. And has it occurred to you, General, that his memories might be freed if he felt safe and secure?”

“If he was adopted, you mean.” He shook his head. “We don't have the luxury of waiting for that to happen, if it even would work.” 

She said, “I know Doctor Rush was tortured, hurt. And Malin was thrust into a world he didn't understand, and zatted when he came through the stargate. Zatted! A little thing like him. As Doctor Rush or Malin, he's experienced plenty of trauma. And traumatized people often lock away memories until they feel strong enough to deal with them. Taking him away from the people who made a place for him in their hearts and home was a huge mistake.”

“No it wasn't a mistake,” General Telford snapped. “The Silers would encourage him to not pay attention to his nightmares, not analyze them like I'm doing.” He pointed a finger towards her. “And look at the results we're getting. His subconscious mind is replaying events in his adult life and the device we're using is proven to bring up repressed memories.”

He sighed, sounding frustrated. “More importantly, I _know_ Rush wants us to figure this out. He's counting on us, and I'll do whatever's necessary to help him. Then I'm betting he ascends again, but if he doesn't, if he wants to regress to being the age he looks, then fine. I don't care, and this isn't personal. I'm thinking of the greater good, too.”

“Then we've made ourselves clear.” She waited until he looked at her and said, “I'll be calling him Malin, and you can't stop me from comforting him when he needs it. But you're right in that I do know Doctor Rush. I watched him with Amanda, Doctor Perry, and he ignores limits. I'm sure he's the same as a little boy, so I'll be making sure he eats and sleeps and has time to play and follows rules six-year-olds should learn to follow. And I won't stand by and let you do anything I deem harmful to him. If he wants to sit in my lap, so be it. Avert your eyes, if it makes you feel uncomfortable.”

He gave her a hard look, his eyes like flint. “And you won't stop me from using the memory device. The IOA approved it and O'Neill isn't pulling out all his political guns to stop me. He's willing to see if it brings results.”

“For now.”

“Why are you doing this, Ms. Dupree? Why give up six months of your life to babysit Rush?”

“That's a personal question, General Telford. I'm not sure I want to share it.”

“It was Doctor Perry, wasn't it?” He slowed as the car approached a four way stop. While he waited for another car to make its turn, he said, a truce in his tone of voice, “I'll say this for Rush. He might have lost us our chance at keeping the Pentagon and Homeworld Command from being bombed by the Lucian Alliance, but he did kill that son-of-a-bitch who murdered Doctor Perry and Ginn and our people on Destiny.”

“I saw Amanda's body, and that girl, Ginn, that she switched with, die.” Her voice trembled a little, with the memory. “It was horrible. Doctor Rush did what I wanted to do and couldn't. So, yes, I'll stay with the boy he's become, or more accurately, with the boy one Doctor Rush has become. I'm doing it for my friend.”

“Fair enough. I hope that things will smooth out between us, Ms. Dupree. We'll be at the safe house in about twenty minutes.” General Telford turned the radio on to a classic rock station. 

Taking that as the conversation between them was finished, Mary glanced back at Malin. He was asleep still. She thought of his dreams she'd seen in O'Neill's office, Malin watching them, too, but he'd wanted to stay on O'Neills lap. He'd curled up against O'Neill, and when he first saw the Nakai on the screen he'd shut his eyes tight. He'd had to be coaxed to watch the recordings. She had translated his answers to the questions the men had asked him, but it had been clear to her that he hadn't understood that those images on the screen were from his brain.

He'd been fascinated with the Nakai but so fearful of them; he called them monsters. He called himself, “That man.” 

_That man is running fast because his friend is sick with blue stuff that's eating his arm. Yuck. He's going to get some medicine for him,_ and _that man is scared of the monsters and he's in the water in a fishtank but he's yelling at them and he can't get out and he hates the water,_ and _That man is very, very tired and he needs a bath, and he doesn't want to hold the gun anymore so he gave it to his friend, and they are walking but that man keeps tripping and his friend is very worried about him and is helping him._

When asked about the pages of programming he written, Malin shrugged and called them puzzles for talking to computers.  
General Telford had asked him what he was telling the computers to do, pointing to what he said was Ancient. _How to hide_ , Malin had signed. For the other strange lines of symbols that Doctor McKay thought was Nakai, he'd signed, _go away_ but for the one that was some version of normal programming, he'd gotten a secretive look on his face and would only shrug.

“We're here,” General Telford said, before pulling into a garage that was attached to a nondescript large house. There was a fenced in back yard, she could see. The area was very rural, and the nearest neighbor had been back a half a mile. 

She opened her door, stood and stretched. Then she opened the passenger door and started to free Malin from his car seat. He didn't stir.

“Here,” General Telford said. “I'll take him. He's not very big, but he'd still be heavy for you.”

“No,” she said, and scooped Malin out of the car. “I've got him.” General Telford couldn't stop seeing Doctor Rush when he looked at Malin. 

It was also clear to her that that he held strong feelings of dislike for Doctor Rush.

So she'd carry Malin. 

* * *

 

**Destiny. Doctor Rush's quarters.**

 

“Wait here, I'll only be a moment,” Rush said, and Everett looked up in mock appeal to a higher power. Any higher power. Rush hadn't even wanted Everett to go with him to his quarters after turning the bridge over to Eli and Matt. He'd said no to that. The way Rush had been scribbling in his little notebook, he had a feeling mathematics was taking over the guy's brain, and he was afraid Rush would forget his promise to not go off on his own since that math corridor would be calling him like a siren to a hapless sailor. 

And he wasn't going to cool his heels in the hallway while Rush grabbed his chalk. 

“You're staying in my quarters,” Everett said pointedly. “You've been in my quarters any number of times now. I'm gonnna think you're hiding a body in there, or building a bomb or --”

“Fine,” Rush interrupted him. “What do you Americans say? Knock yourself out, Colonel,” and he slammed his hand against the door control.

He waved Everett in with an irritated grace, then walked straight to the low chest of drawers that the Ancients had placed at the foot of every bed. He opened up the top drawer and, indeed, Everett saw a pile of chalk sticks. And molds that looked to be made out of conduit and odds and ends of hinges, and in a large container a heap of white mineral.

Amused, he asked, “You got your own private stash of gypsum there, Ace?”

“Yes,” Rush admitted, drawing out the “s” sound. “Will you be throwing me in a makeshift cell for hoarding it, Colonel?” The sarcasm was so strong it could have stood up against a hurricane force wind.

“Nah, I'll just have you keelhauled instead,” he answered, deadpan. “Don't be so touchy, Nicholas.”

“An' who exactly gave you permission to call me by my given name?” Rush put a handful of chalk sticks into his BDU jacket pocket.

“Don't you remember? I told you I was taking it. I'm not going to stop, either. But, _Nicholas_ , you can let me know when you want me to start calling you Nick.” 

“You'll be waiting a good long time then.”

“So, grumpy and trying to pick a fight with me. What's wrong, Ace?” He slid over to Rush and put the back of his hand to the other man's forehead.

“Nope, no fever.”

Rush pushed Everett's hand down. “I'm no sick, except sick of being tied to your side. And it baffles me that you're in this fantastic mood.”

“Well, I don't mind keeping you in eyesight at all. For once, I know where you are and what you're doing. It's a great feeling.”

Rush shot him a dirty look. Everett smiled winsomely at him. “And, Nicholas, I don't mind looking at you for other reasons.”

Rush's look of disgruntlement changed to one of speculation. “Are you still wanting to have sex with me? On a scale of one to ten, with ten being how we were straight out o' stasis, how strong is this compulsion right now?”

Everett shrugged, “A three. Hey, I know you think I've been dragging you around the ship so if you want to sleep here tonight, I'm willing.” He looked around Rush's quarters. “Although two of us in that bed is going to be a very tight fit. Why did you pick such a small place? There's plenty of bigger quarters.”

Rush shrugged back, mirroring him. “It's not like I have a lot of things, and I didn't expect to be sharing my bed with anyone, let alone a brawny lad like you. And it's quieter in this corridor.” His bad mood seemed to have evaporated as soon as Everett had made his offer. He looked at Everett with a calculating air. “We can stay in your quarters, Colonel, if you'll let me write on your walls.”

He'd been right; Rush needed a hit of higher mathematics. “On a scale of one to ten, with ten being you at your most driven in your math corridor, how strong is your compulsion to do math right now?”

Rush looked startled, and then gave Everett that impish smile again. “An eight. Possibly a nine.”

“I don't care, Nicholas. Put your math graffiti all over my walls. Anything else you want from here?”

Rush opened a second drawer and pulled out a towel, courtesy of the Ancients. “I'm wanting a shower tonight.”

Everett raised his eyebrows. “You sure? You got hypothermic damn fast last time.”

“Well, now, I'll be quick since I won't be playing for time, and Telford won't be here to drag me out into the cold air and keep me from drying off.” He gave Everett an annoyed stare. “Besides, I'm very sure you won't let me go by myself, so you can keep an eye on me. I'll do the same for you, if you like.”

“Okay, you've got a deal.” Everett glanced around the room. Most of the crew had made some efforts to make their quarters less like a motel room but there was nothing here that gave away any hint of the occupant’s personality except for his Ipod. 

Rush noticed him looking at it. “We can bring it, Colonel, it's no like I care if you listen to it.”

“Something new for entertainment is always welcome. Thanks. And you can call me Everett.”

“Maybe on the day I give you permission to call me Nick. Colonel, you're doing it again, being too friendly with me.” His tone of voice turned exasperated. “You have the memory of a goldfish. Do I really need to keep reminding you that you hate me?”

“I seem to remember telling you more than once that I don't hate you,” Everett responded, his tone of voice deliberately mild.

Rush rolled his eyes. 

“Nicholas!” Everett snapped.

“What?” Rush snapped back, the word sharp as a needle.

Everett moved closer. “You keep telling me I was brainwashed by the stasis pod into liking you, but you know what I've noticed?” 

Rush struggled with telling him he didn't care, Everett could see the conflict playing out on his face, but he finally said, “What?” but this time cautiously.

He stepped closer to Rush and took him by the biceps and pulled him to him. “What I've noticed, Nicholas Rush, is that you never say we can't be together or be friends because _you_ hate _me._ ”

Rush inhaled sharply and Everett bent his head and kissed him on the forehead. “Anything you say to contradict me isn't going to be believable, so I'd just let it go, Ace.” He turned Rush loose and let him put some space between them.

Rush shot him an aggravated look. “You're very irritating.”

“That so.” He smiled at Rush, feeling pleased with himself. “Hey, how about we finally have that game of chess I hinted for ages ago.”

Rush looked at him as if he was an equation that needed desperately to be solved, his lips twitching. Rush wanted to smile back, Everett knew he did, but it looked like he was trying to squash that impulse; Everett wondered when exactly he'd gotten better at reading him. 

Walking to the door, Rush pointed at the Ipod in its dock. “Grab that will you. And I'm afraid my chess set was appropriated by Eli, who then let Park borrow it, who then let Doctor Inman, and so on. I don't have a bloody clue where it ended up and until everyone is out of stasis and I can threaten the crew with bodily harm and extra work shifts I'm afraid it's going to stay misplaced.”

“So,” Everett said artlessly, “I want a raincheck. Let me know when you get it back.”

Rush snorted. “You must be in need of a thrashing, Colonel, because I _will_ win.”

Everett laughed. “You keep right on telling yourself that, Doctor Rush. C'mon, let's hit the mess and then the showers before we go to my quarters.”

 

* * *

 

Everett was startled out of reading his book and quietly listening to Rush's Ipod by the sound of chalk being hurled against the wall by his desk and a low curse. He looked up from the couch to see Rush crossing his arms over his chest, the chalk in three pieces at his feet. 

So, whatever he was working on wasn't going very well. He debated just leaving Rush to fume, but he didn't really want the guy building up a full head of steam over whatever was frustrating him. Besides, he'd been at it over there on his makeshift chalkboard for three hours without a break. It was time to get some sleep anyway.

Trouble was, Rush was likely to turn his frustration on Everett. Unless he could distract him, maybe. Go grab some tea from the mess, but by the time he got back Rush's bad mood might have reached Defcon One level. 

Rush should go with him, walk off some of that adrenaline his body must be pumping out as his mood got darker.

He laid the book down on the coffee table, pushed off the blanket he'd been huddling under and walked over to where Rush was practically vibrating with tension.

“Hey,” he said quietly.

Rush's eyes flicked toward him but then returned to staring at the wall. Everett moved behind him and lightly laid hands on Rush's shoulders. He gradually pushed down so Rush would feel the weight of his hands, and then he stepped close behind him and snaked his arms around Rush's chest.

“I think maybe you've looked into the abyss enough for tonight. Let's go get a nightcap of tea and call it a day, okay? Before the abyss starts looking back at you.” Everett nestled his cheek into the side of Rush's head. 

“No, no, I should keep working,” Rush muttered, sounding so frustrated and tense.

“You're kind of stuck, aren't you?” Everett asked gently.

“Yes, but I just need to concentrate a little harder; I'm sure I'm on the verge of figuring it out, I can feel it,” and Rush narrowed his eyes at the scrawl of symbols in front of him. 

“You'll get it. And there's no disaster waiting if you don't get it in the next five minutes. Take a break, c'mon.”

Rush let out his breath in an aggrieved sigh. “I should...”

“You're already derailed, Ace. Give it up, and take a walk with me to the mess. It's been a long day and we both need to sleep. You can work all day on this tomorrow, can't you?”

Rush sighed, and God, he sounded tired all of a sudden. Like his energy had just taken a hike. “Aye, I suppose. I don't like leaving it dangling like this, but--”

“But you're gonna come with me and get some tea.” He made sure his voice was light, a little teasing. Ordering Rush would put his back up and he'd keep on working half the night just to be rebellious. 

“All right,” Rush said and relaxed back against Everett.

Everett tightened his arms around him into a hug, then let him go, but he slung one arm around Rush's shoulders and tugged him towards the door.

* * *

 

Rush drifted off to sleep listening to classical music played low from the Ipod, in the same position as last night, Rush's back to his chest, him holding the other man's hands so they wouldn't wander where they shouldn't go. Everett kept his underwear on because Rush had asked him to do it. He'd said it was time to start putting some distance between them. Rush, though, was naked because he had washed his boxers and shirts when he took his shower and they were still damp.

Since he'd only had the two jackets to wear, Rush's skin had been cold, but Everett had pulled him back against his chest and the other man was soon warm. He'd mumbled goodnight to Everett, and before long was sound asleep. Everett waited until his eyes were ready to close, and then he turned off the Ipod and settled himself against the other man again. 

Rush had a very eclectic music collection, but he had brushed off Everett's attempts to talk about his music preferences while they drank tea in the mess. Just one more thing Rush was keeping to himself, but as it had nothing to do with the safety of the crew or with the ship, Everett couldn't justify to himself quizzing Rush about what his favorite songs were, for crying out loud. Not when he'd made it clear he didn't want to talk about it.

Actually, he was surprised Rush had given him the go ahead to listen to his music collection. He had to know Everett was going to gain more knowledge about him that way. Rush liked folk music? He listened to Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and Doctor John? The classical music wasn't much of a surprise, but the Dylan selections were. And who was Runrig? He had so many albums of their music. 

Against him, Rush shifted and murmured something but Everett couldn't make out what he was saying in his sleep. It wasn't English. Rush sighed then and said something again, but sounding more distressed. Everett tightened his hold and shushed him. A nightmare, maybe. God knows they all had enough reasons to have them. Chloe's had been bad enough to make her wander the ship at night, and she'd told him long after the mutiny how Rush was tormented by them, too. Chloe and Rush. They'd become friends, and he hadn't seen that one coming. Rush had taken it upon himself to become her mentor, encouraging her to use the changes in her brain the Nakai had initiated. 

He'd been a teacher, back on Earth. Sometimes you could still see that in him, in the way he made the science team puzzle out answers, or when he'd pull Eli aside for his version of a motivating chat. Everett smiled to himself. He'd bet good money that Rush had been a hard grader and a demanding professor. No easy A's from him, that was a given. TJ had said she'd handed Rush the opportunity to be in charge when Everett and Matt had been on the ice planet, but instead he'd coached her through being in command. He'd given her the greater good speech, and then had deferred to her judgment, available for consultation but not telling her how to handle the problems they'd encountered with the water-sucking mini bugs.

Maybe he'd like to teach again, if this new galaxy didn't try to wipe them out of existence. There were so many Ph.D's on the ship that you couldn't swing a cat without hitting one of them. The airmen and marines under his command would benefit from furthering their education while they were stationed on the ship. He'd talk to Camile about this. They could have Destiny University and let the rest of the folks with doctorates and masters degrees hold classes. Guys like Greer and Dunning, who hadn't been able to afford a college education, could get a good start on getting their degrees. Matthew could get his master's and Chloe would want one in mathematics, no doubt. The civilians mostly had degrees already, he was fairly certain, but some might like to take classes for fun or for a second degree. And hell, maybe the Ph.D's would like to learn more tech level skills, like how to weld. He could see putting Brody in charge of that. Heck, he'd done some welding on a summer job years ago. He wouldn't mind brushing up on that skill and earning a welder's certificate.

He'd run this idea by Rush tomorrow. 

Rush had settled back into sleep, not muttering any more desperate sounding strange words. Everett closed his eyes and let his own thoughts drift away.

 

* * *

Everett realized in a vague way that he was dreaming. Then he forgot that what was happening wasn't real when he found himself standing in line in the mess to get his bowl of mush from Becker. He had just sat down when Eli bumbled his way into sitting next to him, bumping his shoulder and pointing to the kino that was recording Everett's attempt at eating breakfast. “Watch, this, it's really cool; I'm gonna use it for my documentary,” Eli said, and took one of the Ancient bottles they'd liberated from the labs out of his sweatshirt pocket and unscrewed the lid. He dumped some of the sparkly stuff into Everett's bowl. “I had to get through _so_ many levels of Find the Mysterious Structure in the Cosmic Background Radiation before I earned this. Seriously, who knew it would take so long? Now pay attention, Colonel. Rush said it would have the power to change things.”

Eli intoned, E=Mc squared, like a wizard in the games he liked so much, and the mush changed to a steaming pile of mashed potatoes, with a lake of melted butter. Everett took a spoonful and it was just like his mother made mashed potatoes, with a hint of salt, and made from real potatoes, milk and cream cheese. God, it was good. 

Eli said, “Isn't it great? I'm going to go and change Chloe's mush to a big bowl of chocolate ice cream with whipped cream on top. Catch you later, Colonel.” Eli got up and waved at Chloe, who was sitting with Matthew at another table. He trotted over to her, and the kino floated behind him.

Just as he was about to shove another spoonful of wonderful, delicious mashed potatoes into his mouth, the dream slid away and he realized that yes, he'd been dreaming. Damn it. Why couldn't he have kept dreaming until he'd finished the bowl off?

He drifted for a while, and found himself searching for something, something that he needed, something that he wanted. Then with a disorientating wrench, he found himself in a large dark room sitting in a booth and there was a scent of beer and cigarettes in the air. The place was almost deserted, with a couple at a table on the far side of the room, and through a doorway he could see a bar with a TV turned to a soccer game with the sound muted, and half a dozen barflys perched on stools.

There was a book, _Hybrid and Parallel Metaheuristics_ , and a large closed notebook on the table, plus a small notebook with jotted notes that was flipped open. A radio was tuned to a classical music station. It was odd. He knew who he was, Everett Young, but he was also someone else. He knew this wasn't exactly a real dream, not like that ridiculous one he'd just had; this was more like a memory being replayed. 

He took a drag on his cigarette and put it out; the hands were slender, the fingers thin and elegant. Opening the book to a chapter titled, _Mathematical Programming Algorithms and Metaheuristics: An Optimization Approach,_ he began reading. 

He ran a hand through his longish hair, and with that gesture everything clicked for him. He was in Rush's memory. Jesus. He wanted out, he didn't want to be Rush, he didn't want this. 

His attempt to get back into his own head was partly successful because he wasn't _Rush_ any longer; he was still in the memory but as an observer now. Rush was studying in a pub. His hair was shorter, maybe the length he'd kept it on Icarus. He was young and clean shaven. Everett had almost forgotten what Rush looked like without his scruffy beard.

A door opened and a group of people trooped in, carrying musical instruments. They were noisy and a man came from the kitchen and hailed them. Ah, the tall guy with the guitar was the pub owner's brother.

Everett watched with interest as the musicians set up on the small stage. Rush wasn't paying them much mind, his thoughts were on the large notebook, his smooth scrawl filling one line after the other with symbols and equations. 

“Where's your singer and that pretty fiddle player?” Mick the pub owner asked his brother. Rush had never bothered to learn the brother's name so it was a mystery to Everett as well.

“Can you believe it?” the brother said. “They up and eloped on us. They'll be back in two weeks, but they've left us high and dry in the meantime. And us with this gig and three others to do. We've got a girl coming to take Jenny's place. She's excellent, is Gloria; she's a classical musician studying at Oxford. Plays the violin, not the fiddle, except for a lark, but she said she'd give us a hand till Jenny returns.”

“And your new singer?”

The brother sighed. “Thomas.”

Mick gave him a look of sympathy. “Good luck to you then. He's a touchy one.”

“Don't we know it. Anyway, we're going to run through a few songs with him, get him used to the band.”

“And where is himself?" Mick glanced around the room.

“Outside,” the brother said, sourly. “He can't be bothered to help carry in instruments or to help us set up.”

“And there was no one else to call on in your time of need?” Mick said, and clapped his brother on the shoulder.

“Mick, I swear on our sainted mother's grave -- I tried.” the brother said, earnestly. 

“Go on with you, Jimmy.” Mick grinned. “Our mother was no saint, and she liked it that way. She'll come and haunt you for saying such drivel.”

They both laughed and Rush's wandering attention returned to his work.

While most of Rush's thoughts remained on his work, some part of his mind had kept track of the band's rehearsal. The fiddler hadn't arrived yet, but they ran through a few songs, mostly celtic with some popular songs made to fit the celtic-rock-folk style of the band. Rush's memories let Everett know that Rush had heard the band before and he liked them.

And then Thomas tried to sing a Gaidhlig song and butchered it. 

Rush stopped working all together and just stared at the man, narrowing his eyes at the absolute travesty.

Unfortunately, Thomas noticed Rush's expression and stopped singing. “You,” and he pointed to Rush. “You look like you've got something to say, _laddie_.

Rush pushed slowly up, and walked up to the stage. “Too right I do, _mate_. You'd do better to skip the Gaidhlig songs for the night. You don't know the language; your pronunciation is atrocious and you don't even know the words to the song. You're just mouthing syllables, and it shows.” 

Mick, who'd been at a table with a pint, jumped up and went over to Rush. “Nick,” he said in a low voice. “The man's a prat, but Jimmy needs him for tonight. Tell him you were joking, that he's brilliant and then go up to your room before you muck this up for them.”

Rush shook his head, and now his temper was sizzling. Everett could see it in the way his hands were clenching and unclenching and the stiff way he was standing. 

Jimmy was trying to smooth things over with his singer. “Ah, he was just pulling your leg, Thomas. C'mon now, let's give it another go, all right?”

“I want his apology first,” Thomas said, with a superior look on his face and he jumped down from the stage. He was tall and stocky and twice the size of Rush. “You think I don't know languages, but I can tell you're a Glasgow rat. Pretending to be an Oxford student, are you, with a notebook to scribble in to fool the ladies?” He looked down at Rush's clothes, which were clean but worn, and not in a trendy way. 

“Pathetic,” he sneered. 

Rush spoke then, and his accent was twice as thick as it had been. “Aye, I'm from Glasgow, and whether I'm an Oxford student or not is no any business of yours. And you'll no get any apology from me for speaking the truth. You're barely acceptable with the other songs, but you're daft if you think you can sing in Gaidhlig. You can't. Accept it and make some changes in your playlist for the night.”

Thomas' face turned an ugly red. “You little bastard,” he yelled and he went for Rush. 

Rush stepped aside, obviously timing his movements and tripped Thomas.

Thomas rolled with it and jumped back up and lunged for Rush but two big guys from the band held him back. 

Mick had hold of Rush and pulled him away. “They'll be no fighting in my establishment. Is that clear to the two of you, or do I need to toss you out of here.”

Thomas shrugged free and said to Jimmy, “I don't have to put up with this. I was doing you a favor, Jimmy, but you can forget it now. I'm done here.” He stomped out the door and the other members of the band looked at each other with varying degrees of amusement and concern.

Jimmy came over to where Mick was still holding tight to Rush's arms. “Thanks for that.” he said with a tinge of anger. “Now I'm out a singer for the night.”

“No you aren't,” Mick said, shaking Rush. “Nick here has just volunteered to take Thomas' place.”

“I've done no such thing,” Rush hissed at Mick. 

“If you plan on keeping that lovely room upstairs that I rent to you, not to mention providing you with a--”

“Fine,” Rush said. “Perfect.”

“ _Can_ you sing?” Jimmy asked doubtfully.

“No,” Rush said.

“Yes he can,” Mick corrected. “I've the room next to him upstairs and he sings like a dream. And in the Gaidhlig. And he can play the whistles.”

“I've never sung in front of an audience. And I'm pure shite; Mick's no judge of talent. You'd do better to just play the instruments tonight.” Rush was almost pleading, and his eyes had widened.

Most of the band broke out into laughter. Jimmy, laughing as well, said, “Mick's a fantastic judge of talent. He sent me most of the band members, so if he says you can sing, then boyo, you can sing. Now up on the stage with you, and let's hear your version of the song Thomas was mangling.”

Mick and Jimmy hoisted Rush up and the other band members pulled him onto the stage. They were still chuckling; one of them slapped him on the back, making him stagger, and another asked if he wanted a pint to help with his nerves. The door to the pub opened and Jimmy called out, “Gloria, love, meet our lead vocalist for the evening. He's a virgin to the stage, come and help pop his cherry.”

Rush was scowling but he looked towards the door--”

The dream ended abruptly. A sense of sorrow, of drowning in grief overwhelmed Everett and he felt like he might die from it. 

With an enormous effort he wrenched himself free from this strange entanglement with Rush's dreamscape and opened his eyes, gasping. 

Oh my God, he thought. Oh my God. 

The eerie blue light from the FTL travel was making its circuit around the walls and as it passed over the headboard Everett could see a little in the dim light. Tears were flowing down Rush's cheeks, and he made a choked sobbing sound that was heartbreaking to hear. 

“Nicholas?” he said softly, but Rush didn't stir and Everett realized the poor bastard was crying in his sleep. 

He didn't know what to do. Should he wake Rush up? Rush would probably refuse to go back to sleep if he did shake him awake. He thought about Rush working with him tomorrow on no sleep, and it was not a pretty picture. 

He decided to try something else, and rolled Rush so that he was against Everett's chest, his face nestled into Everett's neck. He ran a hand up and down Rush's back and made soothing, humming sounds that Rush would have been appalled to have directed at him, if he'd been awake to hear them. 

So what. Rush would probably have preferred that Everett just shove him out of bed to wake him from his dream, but that was tough. If soothing him got him to stop crying and let him relax back into some other less hurtful dream or memory or what _ever_ that had been, then by God, Everett would soothe the guy. 

After maybe three minutes, Rush wasn't crying anymore and he'd stopped those awful sobs. His breath would catch once in a while still, so Everett kept up the back rubbing therapy. He thought about the memory he'd seen. He'd have to tell Rush about it in the morning. Apparently, this was a new side effect from sharing the stasis pod, and Rush needed all the data to steer them clear of this bonding mess.

He smiled at the thought of Rush being forced to sing on stage. He wondered why he never sang now. He could have joined the Destiny choir, if singing was something he liked to do. 

He whispered into Rush's hair, “You're an awful lot of work, Nicholas,” and swept his hand up and down Rush's back until sleep pulled him under.

* * *


	11. Circling Intimacy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> memories of torture and death are described.

**Destiny. Colonel Young's Quarters.**

 

The softest of whispers brought Everett to guarded wakefulness, but he didn't stir, or stretch, or shove Rush away from him. Instead, he kept his breathing slow and deep, kept his eyes shut, playing possum. Rush was partly lying on top of him, his legs tangled with Everett's. Slowly, cautiously, Rush lifted his head from Everett's chest; he must be trying to see if Everett's eyes were open. He kept them shut. If Rush was up to something he'd give him enough rope to hang himself.

Reconnoitering, observing the enemy without giving away his own position was a skill he'd had to use many times, but this would be the first time he'd used this tactic while in his own bed.

“Colonel Young?” again, Rush barely breathed out the whisper. Everett ignored the question in Rush's voice and didn't allow himself to vary his breathing. 

Curious, he laid down bets with himself as to what Rush would do once he was certain Everett was still deeply asleep. Slide out of bed and finish the work he'd scrawled on the walls, maybe. The numbers and unfamiliar symbols sketched out with the homemade chalk would draw Rush back to them like a moth heads for a flame.

Everett didn't care if he did that, or if he stepped into the bathroom, or poached Everett's book and a blanket and curled up to read on the couch. He didn't care if he appropriated Everett's desk and started scribbling in his tattered little notebook. Or if he huddled in the chair near the bed and watched the blue light that showed they were still in FTL make its circuit around the walls of the room, quietly listening to his Ipod.

But if Rush stepped through the door into the hallway, Everett would tail him. Maybe the effects of the stasis pod were starting to fade, because Rush's whisper was setting alarm bells to ringing. Whatever it was that Rush was going to do, he didn't want Everett to know about it or he'd be rudely shoving his way out of the blankets, not caring if he woke up his bed partner. 

Rush did have a veneer of politeness about him most of the time, but that's all it was, just an artificial layer to his personality. It was skewed enough that it usually provoked suspicion instead of promoting any kind of social grace when he employed it. That politeness was easily discarded by him, and his true nature would be shown. The survivor, the schemer, the self-centered pragmatic loner who.... had been so desolated, so grief-stricken last night about that memory-dream that Everett could still feel the ache in his own chest. 

To feel that strongly, Rush must have deeply loved whoever he'd lost. Everett flashed on the desolate, vulnerable expression on Rush's face when Ginn and Amanda Perry had been killed by Simeon. He'd actually seemed fragile for those long minutes while James used the stones to confirm Doctor Perry's death. Everett had wanted to gather him up, keep him close by, keep him safe while Rush came to terms with the loss of someone who, gossip had it, was becoming much more than just a friend to him. 

Rush hadn't let him, had dodged the hand he'd held out to stop Rush from running away. Rush had let his anger carry him through to utterly destroying Simeon. 

He did have a heart. One that he'd shared with very few people, true, but the man wasn't a sociopath or a psychopath. He could be reached. Everett could find a way. 

“Are you awake, Colonel?” Rush asked again, so very quietly. With a heroic effort, Everett stopped himself from sighing and giving away that he was, indeed, very much awake.

Rush, though, Rush let out a relieved sigh. Then he carefully laid his head back down, his hair falling against Everett's bare chest, and snuggled against Everett.

There was no other word that fit for how Rush molded his body against Everett's. It wasn't sexual. Rush's knee was between Everett's legs, but he made no move to rub against Everett's boxers. Not like the first night they'd shared a bed. 

Everett lay there, deliberately keeping his body lax, his breathing pattern that of a person deep into a sleep cycle and waited for Rush to make his real move.

It didn't come. 

Son-of-a-gun, he thought. Rush didn't want Everett to know that he craved this close contact, this comfort. Everett had been the one who'd initiated all their more platonic touching over the last few days. Holding hands, the neck and shoulder massage, the hugs, he'd made the moves and Rush had accepted them, true, but only so they could control the bond's urges, subvert it from completing through sex. At least, that was what he was trying to make Everett believe.

There was no need for such close contact between them after waking up. They'd touched all night long, Everett's arms around Rush. The tank was filled, they were good to go for hours until another nonsexual touching session was needed.

This was Rush still being secretive, hiding from Everett what he wanted. 

Everett was sorely tempted to bust him right now, to tighten his arms around him and say, “Gotcha” and let Rush try to explain exactly why he was voluntarily snuggling when it wasn't required.

But. Holding him felt good, and how often did Rush get physical contact with anybody? Let him keep his subterfuge. 

_See, Ace,_ he thought at Rush. _I'm being nice to you again, and you don't even know it._

Rush made a small, quiet, contented noise and Everett felt his chest tighten at the sound. Rush wanted this. Rush needed this contact. 

Everett let the man take what he craved and thought about how alone they both were on this bucket of bolts.

* * *

 

Rush closed his eyes and covered them with the palms of his hands, his elbows resting on the mess table. “Ah, that's brilliant. And you're sure it was my dream, not just me being in your dream?”

Everett swallowed the spoonful of mush while scooping another out the bowl to shovel into his mouth. Experience had taught him it was better to eat the stuff fairly quickly. What flavor it did have seemed to evaporate if you let it sit too long. 

“No such luck, Ace. For a while I was you, and then I pulled out enough that I was like a third party observer.” He resumed eating while Rush muttered something under his breath that Everett suspected was not English. Maybe it was Ancient. Rush was fluent in it, after  
all. 

“What did you see?” Rush said, finally dropping his hands away from his face. He wasn't making eye contact with Everett, though.

“You being a smart ass to some guy. You were in a bar, studying something to do with math, and this band was setting up for a show that night. You told him what you thought of his singing and he threw a punch; you ducked for once in your life, and he quit the band. You got drafted in his place, but the dream ended before I got to hear you sing.” Everett decided he wouldn't mention the sobbing in his sleep thing right now. Chalk up another one on the being nice to Rush tally.

Rush had gone very still. “Ah,” he said. “Yes, that's... mine.”

He smiled at Rush. “So when do we get to hear you sing? That Mick guy gave you a ringing endorsement.”

“Mick was always full of shite. I can't sing.” Rush still wasn't making eye contact with him. Hmmm.

“I think I'll take his word over yours, Nicholas. And hurry up, will you? I'm sure Eli and Matt are ready to end their shift.” He pointed to Rush's bowl. Rush hadn't touched it yet.

Rush looked aggravated as hell, but he pulled the bowl closer and started eating at a rapid pace.

After the bowls were cleaned and replaced on the kitchen shelves and they were headed to the door, Everett said, in an innocent tone, “I hear the Destiny Choir could use some new people. Why don't I mention that you're a good singer to the director?”

Rush grabbed his arm, pulling him to a stop. “Don't, Colonel. Just let it drop.” 

Damn, he'd only been teasing, but Rush looked actually upset. “Hey, calm down.”

“I...” Rush choked out, and he looked trapped, his hand tightening on Everett's arm. 

He elbowed Rush gently. “Another secret, right? But I don't see how your singing could help us out, so relax. Nobody's going to make you sing for your supper, Rush, so can you just calm down? I won't tell anybody, okay?”

Rush nodded, and let go of Everett's arm. His expression was a weird mixture of grateful, and sad, and ashamed. He ran a hand through his hair, then looked away.

“So, going to finish that problem that had you stumped last night?” Everett said, and put his hand on the small of Rush's back, nudging him into walking along. 

Rush seemed distracted. “What?”

“The math problem you wrote on my walls, Ace. You threw your chalk at it, remember?” 

“Oh. Yes, yes, I'm going to nail it today.” They left the mess and headed toward the bridge, Rush still looking like he was thinking about anything other than what Everett was asking him.

“You want Eli to give you a hand?”

Rush scowled. “No.”

Everett rolled his eyes, and from the way Rush narrowed his, he'd noticed. “Were you ever a team player, Rush?” 

“Are you implying that I'm not one now, Colonel?” Rush threw out, and he sidestepped away from Everett's hand on his back.

“I think you're not naturally inclined in that direction,” Everett said cautiously, wishing that he hadn't brought it up. 

Rush gave him a tilted, sardonic smile. “That's a fair observation. And correct. Colonel, I'll meet you on the bridge.”

Everett's arm shot out, catching Rush. “You're not making any side trips, Rush. We talked about this.”

“Let go. And I'm not. You're lumbering along like an old bear, so I'll meet you when you show up,” Rush spat out.

Everett turned him loose and Rush started running down the corridor. He was fast and light on his feet. Graceful. He was like a dancer, or maybe a gymnast. A sprinter. A tightrope walker, maybe, who worked without a net. But not a trapeze artist. Not someone who spun through the air, twisting and tumbling, and had to rely on the others in the act to catch him, to keep him from falling to the ground. No, because Rush wasn't a team player, not really, although he could fake it at times. The question was, could he learn to be one?

He picked up his pace. An old lumbering bear, was he? Well, he wasn't as fast as Rush, but it was a good bet he had more stamina.

Maybe he'd challenge him to run laps sometime, and they'd find out just who could outlast who. 

* * *

A half hour before their shift ended and Matt and Eli came to relieve them, Rush copied down his solution to calculating FTL calculations in his battered little notebook, then carefully erased part of what he'd drawn on the corridor outside the bridge.

Everett shut down the work he'd been doing reviewing the incidents that had occurred on Destiny since they'd landed, especially those early days, and walked over next to him. 

“Leaving a present for Eli?” he said, his lips twitching a little from the smile that wanted to break free. This was Rush the teacher at work, or Rush pushing at Eli to catch up with him.

“Aye,” Rush muttered. “I'm not spoon-feeding it to him, let him chew on this for a time.”

“Do you think he'll figure it out like you did?” Everett slung an arm around Rush's shoulders and pulled him a little closer to him. They hadn't touched since lunch time, but he wasn't feeling antsy about it. 

“Will he figure it out like I did,” Rush echoed, but he'd put a disdainful, amused twist to the words. “No. I think he'll recreate my solution and then improve upon it. He's talented that way.”

“I bet you were hard as nails on your students, weren't you? Back when you were teaching,” Everett clarified.

“I didn't put up with lazy, sloppy work and a load of excuses, if that's what you mean,” Rush said, the corner of his mouth turning up a little. 

“Did you like it, though?” Everett persisted. “Being a professor, helping students to understand this stuff,” he made a gesture towards the numbers and symbols on the metal wall of the corridor, “and reach their potential?” 

“Are you trying to have a moment with me, Colonel?” Rush sounded annoyed. He slid out from under Everett's arm and faced him. “You're always asking me this sort of thing. Why do you want to know? What can it possibly matter now, here on this ship?” Rush's tone had turned plaintive, a little. Everett bet the other man didn't realize it, though. 

“It's become a hobby of mine, getting information out of you,” Everett growled, exasperated, closing a hand around Rush's shoulder again. Why did Rush have to make everything so difficult? No wonder the Nakai hadn't been able to get anything out of the closed-mouthed bastard.

“And how would you like it if I did the same to you, eh? Always poking my nose into your past and stirring up things you'd rather just forget?” Rush started to pull away from him, tugging against the hand on his shoulder. 

Everett spun him a little so they were facing each other, and put both hands on Rush's shoulders. 

“Don't you mean getting to know me and if some of my memories are painful, well, maybe it helps to talk about them with a friend,” Everett said, staring into Rush's eyes.

“Ah,” Rush said, and there was such compassion in his eyes and his voice. “You keep ignoring what we are to each other. You do have friends here, Colonel. And they care for you a great deal. When this thing between us finally withers away, you'll turn to them. It will be less uncomfortable for both of us then if we haven't become so intimate.”

Exasperated again, Everett said, “You're sleeping in my bed, we've touched each other _intimately_ , I've seen you cry and held you till your sobs stopped, I've seen you distraught about--”

“I've no cried on your shoulder,” Rush interrupted.

Everett sighed. He hadn't meant to let that slip, that Rush had cried last night in his sleep.

“What?!” Rush snapped. “What did you mean by that?”

“When that dream ended that I saw from your head, you started crying in your sleep. You sounded... well, I helped, okay? I gave you human comfort, Rush. I rubbed your back and held you close to me and you stopped those god-awful sobs. You just don't get it, that I want to help you. I've been trying to help you since we got here. Let me. Let me help you.”

He tried to pull Rush to him, so he could wrap his arms around the man, but instead Rush put his hands against Everett's chest and pushed away hard, breaking the loose hold Everett had on him.

Rush looked frustrated and weary and sad. He'd never met anybody who could show such multiple expressions on his face like Rush did. “Why are you fighting me so hard about this, Nicholas?”

Crossing his arms in a gesture that looked more self-protective than defiant, Rush said, “Because I don't believe in fairy tales, Colonel. These soft feelings you've had about me, well, of course I've had them, too. About you. And I'm tempted to do what you're asking, even to letting the bond happen. But I know it's all just an illusion.” 

Taking a step closer, Everett said, “I don't think it's just an illusion. I think we can build something between us, Nicholas. Something better than what we have now.”

Shaking his head, denying Everett's comment, Rush said, “Can't you see that I'm trying to protect you from yourself? You won't want this kind of connection with me, and soon you'll be glad that I kept us from this sham of being friends, lovers.”

“You started the lovers thing back up.” He took another step closer to Rush.

“Aye, I did and you've been great about protecting me from myself about that, because you've more control over the physical side of things with us. I'm just doing the same for you, with the emotional end.” Rush sounded so sincere, and he was so wrong.

“Actually, I've wanted to help you since our first days here. You wouldn't let me, and then I saw you fall apart and collapse.” Everett gave him a pointed look.

Rush looked away.

Everett curved one hand around the top of Rush's shoulder and gave him one small, sharp shake. Rush's eyes found his again. “You know what I learned from that?”

Rush muttered, “I'm very sure you're going to tell me, whether I want to hear it or no.”

Everett went on as if Rush hadn't thrown out that last smart-ass comment. “That you can't be trusted to know your own limits and that you need help, whether you want it or not.”

Rush shook his head. “Eh, be honest, Colonel. You didn't want to help me, you wanted to control me.”

Everett froze. Was that what Rush had been thinking all this time? He started flipping through his memories, back as far as Icarus.

Rush went on. “I wasna one of your soldiers and I was no gonnae let you stop me from learning this ship and its purpose. It's the chance of a lifetime to be here, but you couldn't see that, back then.”

Everett shrugged. “Maybe not. But we're together now on this mission and you're still off being the Lone Ranger.”

“I like to work alone. I see nothing wrong in that.” Rush also shrugged. “But I don't mind checking in with the science team and hearing their opinions on our problems, and sorting out things for them to work on, with me or with each other. They do need direction and I'm the best one to give it to them. We've a fairly good working relationship now, as long as you don't get in the middle.”

“I won't have to, as long as you talk to me.” He gave Rush a meaningful look.” But once again, I'm going to say this, even though you're not going to want to hear it. You can be reckless, and somebody needs to balance out what you want with what the crew needs and deserves. Me.”

Rush fell silent, just looked at him. Finally, Everett put a hand on Rush's shoulder and said, “What? You might as well say it.”

“I've nothing to say, Colonel. Except maybe we should try sleeping apart tonight. See how it goes.” He pushed Everett's hand down, freeing himself from contact with Everett.

“You're pissed at what I said.”

“No, I'm not.”

“Rush, Nicholas, don't clam up. Communicate for once in your life, please.” 

Maybe it was the please that did the trick, because Rush sighed and said, “If you think you have to protect the crew from me, well, then protect away. But you have no hold on me when it comes to making decisions that only effect me. So, fair warning, Colonel. I will cooperate with you for the good of the crew, but that's all. I'll go where I want and do what I want once we pass through the star.” 

“Protecting the crew means protecting you, too, Rush. Even, no, maybe especially from yourself.”

“I can judge better than you can the risks to myself. For anything to do with this ship. For anything at all, Colonel,” Rush said disdainfully.

“Really,” Everett said, letting his skepticism show, “because your track record with the chair is so excellent, Rush.”

Rush looked irked. “Do you still believe that I talked Doctor Franklin into being my guinea pig?”

“Yes,” Everett said, without any hesitation. “You wouldn't risk your own neck, and you wanted the chair so badly you framed me so you could get Camile to let you experiment with it.”

“I did frame you. And we've put that behind us, Colonel.” He shrugged. “It worked out for the best, after all, with me and Chloe being taken by the Nakai.”

“Torture worked out for the best? God, Rush.”

Rush lifted his chin, straightened his shoulders. “You want me to talk to you, to communicate, well, all right then. I'll say this and then this conversation is ended.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “No, I did not whisper into Doctor Franklin's ear how he should be the one to have the glory and the honor of sitting first in the chair. I told all the science team to stay out of it, that we had to learn more about it first, and then _I_ was gonnae sit in it, once the program me and Brody designed was ready. Despite what you think, I'm no gonna shove one of them under the metaphorical bus. Did I know it was dangerous? Aye, I did, but we needed control of the ship. I judged the risk to me was worth it, with the proper safeguards. Doctor Franklin did what he did on his own. I would have stopped him, if I'd known.”

He ran both of his hands through his hair, a long slow sweep of fingers parting the strands. “Are there things I'd have done differently? Aye. I would have asked that a guard be posted outside the room when I wasn't there, with only me having access. I never thought Franklin would do that, sit in the chair without the protection we'd discussed, the daft git.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, and gave Everett a knowing look. “I told you all of this shite before, Colonel. You didn't believe me then and I don't expect you'll believe me now.”

“Rush...”

“You asked me if I trusted you. I do, when it comes to the ship and being the one to lead these people. I'm gonnae keep helping you with all of that; I've been true to my word on that account. And I don't think you plan on killing me for revenge or anything of the sort. But, Colonel, you don't trust _me_. And maybe you shouldn't.” He paused for a moment, hesitant at first and then a look of determination settled on his features. “I never had to choose between keeping the seed ship's ability to transfer power to Destiny secret or telling you. The science team figured it out first.”

Everett took a step closer as understanding flooded him. “You knew we had a way home and you didn't tell us?” Everett clenched his fists, and tried to control the strong wave of anger that was exploding from his gut. 

“I waited to see what would happen,” Rush said simply, as if any of this was simple. 

“You and your damn secrets!” Anger was burning in his muscles and his hands longed to tighten on this man. He looked hard at Rush and then gave in to his impulse and grabbed him by the biceps and swung him into the wall, smearing some of the chalk writing. Rush didn't fight him and Everett just held him there, while he was inundated with past images of himself hitting Rush, punishing him with his fists, choking him in righteous anger.

They stayed that way, frozen, while Everett let the black rage that wanted to hammer Rush down subside. Rush stayed quiet, his body tense but not shaking or showing any signs of fear. His eyes looked straight at Everett's, not submissive, not guilty, not ashamed, not afraid.

Everett took a deep breath. “Why did you tell me this? Why now?”

“Because we're not friends, Colonel. Maybe you'll remember that now,” Rush said, with a shrug. But Everett heard something else in his tone, just the slightest edge of regret that he doubted anyone else would catch, except maybe Chloe. 

Everett gave a low curse. Rush thought he had needed a lesson. Maybe Rush was right.

Maybe Rush was right about other things, too.

He let his hands slide down Rush's arms to his wrists, and then pulled them up, next to Rush's head and pinned them. He pushed his body against Rush's and just held him there. 

When he made no further move to slam into Rush or to punch him or kick him in the balls, Rush started to look uneasy.

“Let me go,” he said quietly. 

“No,” he answered, just as calmly. He'd gone from the fire of anger to this coldness, this calmness, calculating the truth of what Rush had let slip.

“What are ye doin', Colonel?” Rush asked and tried to push off from the wall. Everett easily kept him there, dominating him. Rush tried to pull his arms down to free them and couldn't. He started breathing faster.

“Colonel, you should let me go,” he insisted, small trembles shaking his thin frame, his pupils dilating.

“You're a scientist, Rush. You should appreciate scientific curiosity. You've got in in spades, after all.”

“What are ye talkin' about?! Let me go before--”

“Before me handling you this way turns you on? That ship has sailed, Rush.” He nudged against Rush's hardening erection. 

“You're gonnae sabotage us, Colonel. For God's sake, what are ye doin?” He tried again to break free, but Everett kept him pinned for long minutes, their breathing the only sound as they stared at each other. Rush's eyes were dark whirlpools drawing him down into their depths, drowning him.

Slowly, slowly, Rush shifted his weight to one leg and Everett pushed against the other one, making Rush spread his legs, giving Everett more access to his groin, his dick. Everett didn't move one whit closer though, didn't use his thigh to excite Rush even more. 

Rush looked frustrated and bit his lip, and Everett wanted to lick it, soothe it and kiss Rush so hard that he'd steal the breath from him. He wanted everything from Rush. 

He wasn't going to take it. He knew he was walking a fine line right now, but he wasn't going to break Rush and make him offer himself up to Everett, to fuck him. Although fucking Rush would do the cranky bastard a world of good; he knew he could make Rush orgasm so hard the man would sleep for hours afterward, still smiling in his sleep. But not with the bond standing between them. Not when he'd essentially promised Rush he wouldn't force him into it. 

“Do I want to control you? You said I did. So this would be the hypothesis, wouldn't it, Rush? That I want to control you. You're the lead scientist here, am I doing the scientific method correctly?” Everett said, his voice a little mocking.

“What are ye doin'?” Rush said, bewildered and frustrated. He tried again to push free, but Everett stopped him. To be fair, Rush wasn't giving it much effort. It wasn't like he was panicked and fighting off the Nakai, after all. 

“I'm gathering data, running my experiment. I'm controlling you, keeping you right where I want you.” He let his forehead touch Rush's.

“An' what's your bloody conclusion, then?” Rush spat out, turning his face away from Everett.

Everett leaned closer and whispered in his ear, “I like this. I like holding you still, knowing you can't run away from me, knowing where you are, knowing what you're doing. Seeing you like this, turned on and willing to let me touch you, I would fucking love it. I would take you down, Rush. I would shatter you down to your very atoms.”

Rush shuddered and whispered back, looking at him again. “I'm trusting you, Colonel. End this now, please, before things get out of hand.”

Everett said, soothingly, “Soon. I promise, soon. But you see, there's a second question that needs to be answered. By you.”

“What?” Rush breathed out. 

“Do you like being controlled by me? This,” he briefly nudged Rush's hard-on, “indicates yes. But maybe there's other variables at work here. Maybe it's just being held down, not being held down by me. But you know, you didn't get an erection when Telford had you and was controlling you. So is it me, Rush?”

“Go to hell.”

Everett gave him a sardonic smile. “Avoiding the question? But if you agreed to let me hold you like this, you wouldn't have to think about anything else. All the work that hasn't been done, all the questions that haven't been answered, all the responsibilities that have been piled on your shoulders. None of it would matter, because I've got control. And I would make it feel so good for you. I think you want this. I know you need it.”

“And be what? Your mindless slave, never challenging your orders or ideas? I won't do that,” Rush said, almost despairingly, and he tried to yank his hands free. 

“Shhh,” Everett soothed. “I'm not asking you to. Controlling you is not what I want when it comes to running this command, Rush. _Cooperation_ , that's what I want. Transparency. Honesty. Trust. I want you by my side, advising me, not being a bootlicker. So, controlling you in that is not my intention, unless you force me to it. But if we ever become _intimate_ then I'd want this sometimes. I'd find you wherever you'd gone to ground, overworked and tired and snippy with everyone, and I'd take you to my bed and I would make you forget everything else. I'd give you no choice but to be pleasured. And you'd like it, Nicholas. You'd fucking love it.”

Rush swallowed hard, his pupils blown. “Colonel...” Everett waited for Rush to say something else, anything else, but Rush seemed to have forgotten how to talk. 

Everett bent his head a little and whispered in his ear, “You think about it, Ace. And just so we're clear; yes, I want to help you. No, I don't want to control you in your role as the chief scientist on this boat, but I will if you won't cooperate with me. I owe that to the crew. And in bed, well, I think I've explained that pretty clearly already.”

He was taking a step back from Rush, when the sound of footsteps registered. 

“Oh, jeez. Sorry,” Eli said, sounding dismayed.

Everett let go of Rush's hands and turned around, shielding Rush. “Hello, Eli.”

Rush didn't say anything and he didn't move from the wall.

“Yeah. So... right. Awkward,” Eli answered, rolling his eyes. “Matt's right behind me, by the way. He stopped off at the bathroom.”

Eli suddenly took a step sideways and peered at Rush. “Wow. Are you blushing?” He sounded incredulous.

“Shut it, Eli,” Rush muttered, but he didn't give any real bite to the words.

“So, still struggling with the whole not bonding thing, I see,” Eli said, glancing between Everett and Rush.

Snagging Eli's arm, Everett said, “I'll fill you in. There's been a new development. Rush?” he called while tugging Eli out of the corridor and into the bridge.

“I have to fix this.” Rush turned around, facing the wall and pulling a chalk stick out of his jacket. “Eli, you need to fill in the blanks.”

“Fill in the blanks? What is this, homework?” Eli said, stopping abruptly. 

“Yes,” Rush responded, sounding more like himself. “The FTL calculations.”

“You figured out that algorithm? Just show it to me.” Eli half turned in Everett's grip, but Everett nudged him to keep walking.

“I don't think so,” Rush called to Eli. “I'll check your work tomorrow.”

Eli rolled his eyes and stage whispered to Everett, “I bet you ten fruit rations that I blow his solution out of the water.”

“I'll keep my fruit rations, thanks,” Everett said dryly. He waved towards the consoles. “I'll join you in a minute.” Eli nodded and stepped down towards the window. Everett snagged the radio where he'd left it by the command chair, and quietly contacted Matt.

He watched as Matt stopped to talk to Rush. Rush nodded, and Matt brought the radio up to his lips.

“Colonel, Doctor Rush and I are going to start on the shuttle training. Give us an hour, and then I'll swap him for Eli.”

“Copy that. I'll meet you in an hour at the shuttle. Young out.”

He rubbed his hands over his face. Things had gotten carried away, out there in the corridor. He'd felt so angry at Rush again, felt betrayed, although time-wise, Rush's actions in not telling him what he'd learned about the seed ship were before he'd given his word to start supporting Everett.

Rush had told him that to make him angry on purpose. He hadn't even tried to protect himself, maybe he was even hoping that Everett would hit him, to sour the feelings he'd been having about Rush. 

And so maybe Everett had retaliated a little, pulling that crap about dominating Rush. But he had liked it, and what was more interesting, Rush had liked being dominated. He wondered if that was as much a revelation to the other man as all of this was to him. 

He probably had set them back on the urge to bond going dormant. Rush was probably pissed about that. 

This was difficult, trying to improve his relationship with the man but not stepping into the bonding territory. Sometimes things seemed so good between them, like they had during their work shift today. They'd been comfortable together; Rush had done some of the kino trainings on the systems, Everett had reviewed them and that had gone well. He wanted that all the time with Rush, working together, collaborating, if not friends, then at least being friendly. 

He wanted to know that Rush had his back. 

He wanted to see Rush smile more often. To see him really be a part of the crew. 

He wanted Rush to not fuck him over, or fuck over the crew. 

Maybe he was wishing for rainbows and kittens.

He sighed. He'd update Eli on how he'd shared Rush's dream-memory, how the emotions Rush had felt had been like a punch in the gut. Maybe Eli had found something out in his research on the database about the consequences of doubling up in the stasis pod.

At least Rush would have some time to get calmed down again, going with Matt to the shuttle. Matt had left him with a list of suggestions on improvements this morning, and one of them had been a short list of people he thought would make good shuttle pilots. With only the two of them able to fly, it was prudent to train other people. Rush had been at the top of Matt's list.

He walked over to the navigation console and laid a hand on Eli's shoulder. “There's been no problems with our course, Eli.”

Turning a little, Eli said, “I know. So, I saw Rush and Matt walk off together. What's that about?”

“Matt's going to start training him on the shuttle's systems.” He let go of Eli. He'd be a good pilot, Everett thought. And maybe if he was putting his neck on the line he'd be more careful about risking the shuttle and its passengers. Or maybe not. He might take chances Everett or Matt wouldn't. He sighed. Rush was difficult to figure out. 

Eli waved a hand dismissively. “He already knows every system, you know. So, I gather Rush is going to be a pilot?”

“Yes. We need more trained people and he's showed an aptitude for it already,” Everett said, still thinking about Rush taking chances piloting the shuttle. If he did, Everett decided, he'd have a damn good reason for doing so.

“Flying Chloe back to Destiny in one of the Nakai shuttles?” Eli said, waving a careless hand at the window to where different shades of green and blue and yellow and pink were streaming against the shield.

“Yep, and technically it was his twin who flew the shuttle from the other Destiny here, but our Rush would have done as well.”

“I'm sure he'll be awesome at it,” Eli said, starting to roll his eyes. He broke it off instead for a speculative look. “Hey, is Matt going to train me? Do you have any idea what kind of scores I've gotten on Tie Fighter, and that was before I got out of middle school. And, oh man, Falcon 4.0 Allied Force, I ruled that one. That's the 2005 version, not the 1998, which kind of sucked.”

Before Eli could spiral off into a long ramble about video games, and how he kicked the crap out of the competition, Everett held up his hand. “Yes, you're on the list, too. Actually, I could swap you for Rush for a while tomorrow, after our shift is done, and I'll start your training.”

Eli beamed. “Sweet! I can't wait until I can do a practice run.”

“Maybe after we drop out of FTL. We'll see. Eli, something happened last night, when Rush and I were asleep. I want you to include dream sharing in your research on the pods. And have you learned anything new?”

“No, sorry. But you guys shared your dreams?” Eli's eyebrows went as high as they could on his expressive face. “Man, talk about a lack of privacy. But yeah, um, want to give me some details?”

“It was one-way. I finished one dream that was typical nonsense, and then I found myself living out Rush's dream. For a while I was him, but then I was able to kind of step back from that and just observe. But it was more like a memory, you know? I felt his emotions very strongly. Nothing weird happened in it, and Rush said that it was one of his dreams.”

“He didn't jump into one of your dreams?” Eli asked.

“No. And he didn't know I'd shared his dream,” Everett said. “Not till I told him.”

Eli made a disturbed face. “I can't think of anybody who would hate that more than him.”

“Me either, Eli. Me either.”

Eli looked away. “Colonel, I saw enough in the corridor to know that what was going on was your idea. It was hard to miss, actually, the way you had him pinned to the wall.” 

Everett realized that Eli hadn't gotten that look at Rush out of prurient curiosity; he'd been checking to see if Rush was hurt.

“I didn't hurt him.”

“Good to know.” Eli cleared his throat. “Colonel, if the craving for the bond is making you act that way, don't you think bringing TJ in on this would be a good idea?”

“It wasn't the bond, Eli.”

Eli gave him a skeptical look. 

“Maybe five percent was the bond. The rest was just... us.” God, this was awkward talking to a kid half his age about him and Rush.

“If I ask Rush the same question, I'm gonna get the same answer?”

“Eli. You won't get an answer at all.”

Eli mock slapped at his forehead. “You're right, what was I thinking?”

Everett sighed, not wanting to do this. He would, because Eli was functioning as a safety net for the bonding stuff. And he had no doubt that he would wake up TJ if he felt Everett wasn't being transparent with him about what was happening between him and Rush.

“He said something to make me angry. On purpose, because he wanted to bring home to me that he's an untrustworthy son-of-a-bitch and that my efforts towards maybe, maybe becoming friends should be stopped. I reacted badly to that. What you saw was me proving something to myself. And him.” He forced himself to keep eye contact with Eli.

“It looked, well. Fucked-up,” Eli said, a bit reluctantly.

“That pretty much describes every interaction I've ever had with Rush,” Everett said tiredly.

“It looked personal.” Eli cocked his head. “Not really a commanding officer and chief scientist sort of interaction.”

“But it wasn't the bond, although I might have slowed down our progress on that front. TJ can't help us, Eli.”

“God, you know how much I love these conversations, but I have to ask.” Eli made a face, but his tone of voice was dead serious. “Have you had sex with him, not counting when Telford showed up, and if you did, was it consensual? Because from what I saw, if you wanted him, I don't think he could stop you.”

“He wasn't giving it his best shot, Eli, but no, he probably couldn't,” Everett agreed evenly, hating this whole line of questioning. “But it hasn't happened and it's not going to happen. Feel free to ask him for confirmation about that.”

“Be a waste of time and just get him annoyed with me.” Eli looked very uncomfortable. He took a deep breath, like he was going to jump into an icy pool. “If you had raped him, he'd just lie about it or not say anything at all.”

Rape, Everett thought, was such an ugly word. And it stung that Eli considered it a possibility. “That's a line I won't cross, Eli. He trusts me to keep to it, and I'm asking you to do the same.”

Eli stopped staring at the console and looked up at Everett. “If you think you can't hold to that line, you'll let me know so I can get TJ? She could at least sedate the two of you until maybe things lighten up.”

“All right. It won't come to that, though. We're controlling it okay.” 

“And when TJ is out of stasis, I want your word that you're going to tell her about the pods and the effects from it. It's either you or me on that one, Colonel.”

“Yeah. I'll inform her.”

“Swell. So can we stop talking about this now? Except, who knew that Rush could blush like that?” Eli's expression had turned quizzical, his eyebrows raised so high he looked comical.

Everett shrugged. “I've seen him do it a couple of times. Hard to control something that's an involuntary reaction.”

“I would bet my I phone that you're the only one who could make him do it, though.”

Everett made a noncommittal sound, and Eli thankfully dropped the interrogation. He didn't blame him for questioning him. Eli was a decent kid and despite the weird kind of rivalry going on between Rush and Eli, Eli did care about him.

He went back to the command chair and tried to define what that rivalry reminded him of. Not exactly teacher and student, although there were elements of that, but not so much now as when Eli and Rush had first met. Older brother to younger brother, maybe, with the younger brother coming into his own and challenging the older brother, who would be both proud of the younger one's achievements and annoyed with him. Probably jealous, too, and Everett knew it had rankled Rush when Eli had solved the ninth chevron problem. Still, Rush didn't let any envy he had towards Eli stop him from pushing Eli to do his best. When they'd flown through the blue giant star, Eli had told him that Rush thought Eli would be faster at the last minute changes that would come up. Rush hadn't let his ego get in the way of surviving. He'd put Eli, the best man for that job, at the helm. 

At times, Eli was protective of Rush. Like now, and when he'd shut down Amanda Perry's simulation, knowing that he'd lose Ginn. He'd hated to do it, but to save Rush, he'd done it. And Rush had been tireless in the attempts to find Eli and the others when they'd been left behind. He cared for the boy.

He rubbed his forehead. He knew he'd been pondering about Eli's and Rush's relationship so he wouldn't have to think about what happened between him and Rush in the corridor. 

He suspected that Rush wouldn't bring up what happened and if he wouldn't, then Everett wouldn't either. Not the most honest way to communicate, true, but they could live with it. He'd cut back on trying to make personal conversation with Rush. They could stick to the issues with the crew and the ship, for now.

And Everett's discovery that he liked pinning Rush down, and Rush's realization that it set him on fire, well, it wouldn't be the first secret they'd kept between each other, would it?

* * *

**Destiny. The Shuttle Bay.**

Rush's eyes met his when Everett joined him an hour later, and he pushed a hand through his hair. Matt was running through the pre-flight checklist and hadn't heard Everett pad softly into the open shuttle, allowing a weird sense of privacy long enough for Rush and him to come to a nonverbal agreement that they'd move on from what had happened in that corridor. He nodded at Rush and the man nodded back.

It felt familiar, this mutual decision to ignore what they'd done; of course, the first pact they'd made to put aside Rush's betrayal and abandonment and work together for the sake of the crew had ended in mutiny, their second pact, begun after he'd beaten Rush up for hiding the bridge and sealed when Rush had saved his ass from floating off into space, had fared better. Still, he hadn't been able to trust Rush enough to let him stay out of the stasis pods to fix them. There was a lot of work left to do on that front.

Maybe this week would end up pulling them closer together – or if Rush's prediction was correct, once the stasis pod's influence wore off they'd go back to watchful animosity and tentative cooperation. 

At any rate, they still had most of a week to spend tied together, and this truce would make things a lot easier for both of them. Still, he couldn't stop thinking about the way Rush's eyes had looked, the way he'd let Everett part his legs. Good thing the showers were on the cold side.

Matt turned, alerted by Rush crossing his arms over his chest. “Oh, hi, sir. We're about done here. Actually, Doctor Rush is ready for flying time; I'm checking him off on the pre-reqs.”

Everett said, extending the olive branch to see if Rush would take it or not, “Eli said you knew these systems already. I'm not surprised.”

Rush nodded, and somehow he made it clear that he was accepting this new truce as well as affirming his knowledge of the shuttle. Everett nodded back, and Matt looked between them.

“Sir? Doctor Rush? Is everything okay?

“Yes,” Rush said simply, and Everett waved a hand, as if he was wiping away any unpleasantness between himself and Rush.

“Things are fine, Lieutenant. You can head on back to Eli now,” Everett said firmly.

Matt didn't look like he was buying what he and Rush were trying to sell, but he left after giving Rush a quick pat on his shoulder, and a final, “sir,” to Everett.

* * *

After leaving the shuttle together, Rush made it clear that he was going to sleep on the couch, and Everett didn't try to talk him out of it. They walked along to Rush's quarters and Everett helped him strip the bed, folding the thick comforter and luxurious sheets into bundles to carry back to his room. 

“So,” Everett began but Rush glared him back into silence. They left Rush's corridor and walked towards Everett's quarters. 

He tried again a few minutes later. “I'll back off, okay? I won't ask you any more personal questions.”

“Thank you,” Rush said stiffly.

Everett cleared his throat and Rush looked at him. “About what you told me, though. If the science team hadn't figured out power could be channeled to Destiny, would you have told us about it?”

“Do you want the truth?” Rush arched his eyebrows.

“You know I do.”

“I don't have a bloody clue,” Rush said tiredly. 

“Anything else you want to tell me about all of that?” Everett asked wryly. “I'm prepared now, you won't catch me off guard.”

“So you're not going to push me up against another wall, and drive me mad?” Rush shot him a sarcastic look, but there was something in his voice that Everett read as genuine leeriness. “Or hit me?”

“Probably not,” Everett said, purposefully sounding mild. 

Rush's expression flicked to apprehensive before he settled into one of his stoic looks. “I'm responsible for undocking us from the seed ship and sending Telford off with the Ursani.”

Everett's eyebrows raised. “You saved our asses.”

Rush shrugged. “I marooned your friend, and for all we knew, sent him to his death.” 

“Did you know he was still on that ship?”

Rush shook his head. “I'd have done it anyway. We were being bled to death.”

“Well, Telford's a bad penny kind of guy. He always seems to turn back up,” Everett said, sounding unconcerned.

Rush smiled a little. “That he does.”

They didn't speak for a while, just briskly moved through Destiny's curved darkened corridors, the light barely enough to see where they were going. Everett's speed had picked up and he suspected Rush had slowed down from his usual fast jog. A non-verbal compromise, maybe. He remembered something he'd thought of earlier and broke their silence.

“Want to run laps tomorrow morning?”

Rush turned his head to the side, in that birdlike motion he had sometimes. He looked thoughtful. “Maybe, but I'm not holding back to keep pace with you.”

“I was thinking of a little wager. I'll concede that you'd win for short distances. How are you at distance running, say around twelve miles? That's my usual long distance run.”

“Metric system, for heaven's sake,” Rush muttered. “A little over nineteen kilometers, then. What's the wager?”

“Who has the most energy left afterwards. If I win, we're watching movies tomorrow night.”

“And if I win?” Rush asked, speculation in his eyes.

“You've been bugging me about checking out that new section that you located, so I'll go with you to take a look.”

“Done.” Rush said. He shot Everett an amused look. 

“You haven't won yet, Rush.”

“I'm very sure I will.”

Everett gave him a guarded look. “Look, I know you run all the time around the ship. Hell, half the time you're bowling over people.”

“Chloe is never going to let me live that down,” Rush muttered, more to himself than Everett.

“But you do have experience with long distance running, right?”

“Don't worry about it, Colonel,” Rush said carelessly.

“Rush,” Everett growled. “If that's too long we can cut it back, or hell, drop the idea.”

“If you forfeit now, after making the wager, then I win, Colonel.” Rush smirked at him.

“Oh, hell, no. It's on, Rush.”

“Aye. Well then, who's mixing up our mush tonight, you or me?”

 

* * *

On the way back to his quarters, after another forgettable meal, Everett broke the silence that they'd fallen into. “So, excited about learning to fly the shuttle?”

Rush gave him a small, wry smile. “I hardly think excited is the correct term, but I agree it's a good skill to learn.”

“I love flying. It's why I joined the Air Force.” Everett smiled back, glad they were back on friendly terms.

“The shuttle must seem very clunky to you.” 

Everett gave a dismissive wave. “Like a bus, after learning to drive on a Ferrari.”

Rush made an amused sound, and Everett joined him with a small chuckle of his own.

 

* * *

Everett woke up halfway when the covers were lifted and freezing cold air hit his skin. For a moment he thought he was camping with his team on a cold Milky Way planet. 

Then somebody slid into bed with him. “Em?” but even as he said her name he realized who it was as Rush plastered himself against Everett. 

“You're freezing,” he said, punctuating his comment with a yawn. “That why you're here, or is it the bond?”

“It's fucking both,” Rush said, and shuddered.

“S'okay, I'll warm you up.” He pushed Rush over onto his side and turned over so he could slide an arm under him and his other one over him, took his freezing hands in his own and wrapped a leg over Rush, pulling him tight against him. 

Rush sighed, his back muscles relaxing against Everett's chest. “You're little and there's not much to you, no wonder you get so cold,” he mumbled into Rush's neck.

“I'm no little,” Rush grumbled, and although he couldn't see his face, he was sure Rush's lower lip was betraying that he was pouting.

“Go to sleep,” he growled, and drifted back off himself.

* * *

He woke up screaming a dead man's name. 

“Colonel!” There was somebody in bed with him, somebody who was struggling against him. Instinctively, he tightened his hold and took in great gulps of air. He felt moisture on his face.

“Colonel Young! Wake up, man. You're alright, you're on Destiny.”

The sound of that lilt, the urgent tone of the man's voice cut through the blur of the fading nightmare.

Rush. Rush was here, in bed with him.

“You're alright now. It was just a bad dream, you're awa' from it now.”

He tried to sit up, but he was tangled with the other man. He realized that he had a death grip on Rush's wrists. He let him go and slid his arms free, then pushed him and the covers away. He jackknifed up and out of the bed, desperate to move, to escape. He walked a few feet away and then collapsed into the large chair. He was covered in sweat, and a cold rivulet ran down the side of his face.

Rush sat up and turned on the small light on the bedside table. Everett watched him, dully, still in the emotional quagmire of his nightmare. 

“Are you alright?” Rush asked quietly, his messy hair half across his face. He ran an impatient hand through it, brushing it away.

“I'm fine,” he said, his voice rough and thick. He wouldn't have bought that if he'd heard it from someone else and the way Rush was shaking his head, he didn't either.

“No,” he said softly. “No, you're not. What do you need, a shower, some tea?” He reached down and felt the sheets and then quickly slid out of bed. “You've sweated through the sheets.” 

He stripped the bed efficiently, then gathered up his own discarded bedding and quickly remade the bed.

“How?” Everett asked, trying desperately to focus on anything but what his subconscious had let explode outward into that same hellish dream that had plagued him for years now.

Rush seemed to know what he was trying to say. “The sheet fabric will stretch to fit any size bed. Remarkable, really, as it doesn't feel like a knit, but rather smooth, like expensive cotton or silk or satin.”

Tossing his own comforter over the bed, he hung Everett's and the blanket over the couch, where they could air out. 

He came over to Everett then, and crouched down, clad only in his worn boxers. He put a hand on Everett's knee and looked up into his face. “Do you want to take a walk, or go to the mess and drink some tea?”

Everett shook his head. “Is that what you do, when you have nightmares?”

“Yes. That or go back to work. Do you want to go back to bed, then?”

“No. You go, Rush. At least one of us should get some sleep.”

Rush stood up and Everett expected him to climb back into bed, but instead he went into the bathroom. 

Everett closed his eyes and tried not to let the sobs that wanted to escape from his chest free. God. 

He opened his eyes, startled when a cloth wet with cleaning gel-mist wiped the sweat off his forehead. Rush looked at him and held up the cloth but Everett just closed his eyes, and Rush continued gently removing the tears from his face, the cloth catching a little on his stubble. He lightly ran the cloth over Everett's chest and back, arms and legs, and then stepped away. Everett let him, feeling numb and heavy.

A comforter, cool in the freezing air, was arranged around him and Rush crouched down again next to him. “I've brought you some water. You should drink it, you've had a shock.”

Everett took the water bottle and drank half of it, and Rush put it back down on the floor. 

“What happened then? In your dream?” Rush's voice was soft, compassionate. It was tempting to tell him, but this was Rush, who didn't want to share anything personal. 

“Aren't you afraid it might be too _intimate_ to share, Nicholas?”

“It's three am, Colonel. The witching hour, you know, so normal rules don't apply. So what happened then?”

“Will you stand up?” Everett said.

Rush did so, and already he was beginning to shake with the cold. “Do you want me to go?”

Everett brought a hand out from under the comforter and crooked a finger. “C'mere,” he whispered.

Once Rush had leaned down close to hear him, Everett swept aside the comforter and pulled Rush down into his lap, smiling a little despite the heartache that wanted to drown him at the undignified squawk Rush made.

“Stay here, you're freezing.” He arranged the comforter around both of them; Rush made a grumbling sigh but settled against him. 

“Not going to fuss about this?” he asked Rush. 

“It's the witching hour,” Rush said, sounding surprisingly patient. “All manner of strange things happen during it. But you will be keeping this to yourself, Colonel.”

“It would kind of blow your image as a bad-ass, if the science team or Greer knew you'd curled up in my lap like an overgrown cat.”

“Exactly. But don't think you can be doing this sort of thing on a regular basis,” Rush said, a warning tone in his voice.

“I got it. Only in the middle of the night when I have a nightmare and you're indulging me.” 

“Aye. So what happened then, in your dream?” 

Everett fell silent, but he tightened his arms around Rush. He breathed in the scent of Rush's hair and let his forehead touch the other man's temple.

“We were on a mission to PIX-874,” he said finally. 

_It was cold, on the verge of snowing when they came through the gate. Two Marines from the platoon on protection detail had greeted them and radioed the base that his team would be coming in. Fat flakes of snow had started pouring down before the gate was out of sight and Donaldson had made a quip that maybe they could make a snowman before returning. Wang had insisted that if they did, it had to be a Yetti snowman. Those two were always arguing and bantering together, but when it came to doing their science on the fly you couldn't ask for a better set of partners. Everett had let them goof off as they trudged towards the research station while he had their six and Marston had taken point._

“The scientists on my team had been requested for a consult by the guys at the research station.”

_Alien tech had been found in the ruins of what had once been a temple to Inanna, a Sumerian goddess and Goa'uld. Daniel Jackson had done the legwork on the mythology and had flagged this planet's ancient ruins for further study. There was a lot of speculation about what had been described as a great weapon of defense. It had protected Inanna from destructive rays of light hurled by Kur, another Sumerian mythological character and she had defeated her enemy. The bread of life, the water of life, which had brought Inanna back from the dead when she'd gone to the underworld, had sparked interest in possible regeneration technology. With the discovery of a hidden, huge underground complex and labs that probably had been described as the underworld in the old stories, the IOA had authorized the formation of a research base eight months ago, and the science team had requested Wang's and Donaldson's assistance. So, okay, they weren't Carter and McKay, but they were a couple of genius kids. It was his job to make sure they could do their job._

“So we spent most of a week there, and I conducted drills with the platoon stationed there on guard duty while my scientists spent the days and half the nights working with the base science team.”

_He'd usually have to come and drag Wang and Donaldson off to their bunks. They were brilliant, but once they got involved with a scientific puzzle, everything else went out the window. Marston and he were used to it, though. God, he missed his team. Wang's smile used to light up her face. Donaldson would talk with his hands, and they'd all learned to keep utensils away from him when he got going about something or else they'd end up spattered with whatever MRE the boy was supposed to be eating. He'd enjoyed Marston's laconic way of talking and handling problems, so at odds with the way she would explode into action, whether it was a hand to hand fight, or laying down covering fire for them as they'd run for the gate._

“PIX-874 was a backwater planet; nobody had lived there for probably a thousand years. It wasn't on any well traveled routes, either through space or through the gate. So when a Ha'tak dropped out of hyperspace I knew that Stargate Command had been compromised.”

_This had been a highly classified mission. He wondered who had betrayed them. Was it someone in the IOA, or had the Trust planted a sleeper agent who had surfaced, intent on the new tech found here. Had a fellow officer, someone he was friends with or respected, been caught and tortured into giving them up?_

“My team was at the gate, ready to step through the puddle to the SGC, along with two of the base scientists who were bringing some of the tech back to Area 51. Greer and Dunning came from the base for extra protection and to relieve the gate guards.”

 _It had been pure dumb luck that they'd dialed the gate in time to block the enemy from dialing in from the Ha'tak's stargate. For thirty-eight minutes at least, they could stave off a full scale invasion, if they could hold the gate from the Death Gliders that were sure to launch from the Ha'tak. Whoever was on that ship, Goa'uld, Lucian Alliance, or some other pirates, they'd come to investigate after they couldn't get a lock on the planet's gate._

“The SGC was notified we would be under attack but the Daedulus was in Pegasus, the Olympia, and the Sun Tzu on other missions and couldn't divert. We wouldn't have backup. We were ordered to evacuate the civilian personal, but the IOA didn't want to give up the base. Landry left it up to me – if it couldn't be protected, then I was to blow it up. The base scientists with us went through with most of the tech, but my team kept one device” 

_Wang had argued fiercely to return the weapon to the complex where it could be powered up, target the Ha'tak and then let the device shield the labs. She'd ran a hand through her black hair, her words fast and demanding, her face intent. But she couldn't guarantee her strategy would work._

“We knew the device could take down any Death Gliders that launched from the mothership, if it could be powered up, but Wang was sure it could be calibrated to take down the Ha'tak and revert to form a shield if returned to its console in the complex. To, uh, recharge its battery, so to speak. It drew power from subspace, some sort of precursor to a ZPM. But my first priority was getting those people out of there, and for that I needed to protect the gate. My scientists put their heads together and got me a solution.”

_Wang and Donaldson jump started the damn thing from hotwiring it to the MALP. They weren't sure how long the power source within it would be good for, but the pictures on the temple ruins showed it emitting an energy beam that destroyed aircraft. The weapon was elegant in its design with rounded edges and etched lines the flowed across its narrow rectangle shape. Tripod legs unfolded from the base and a targeting screen slid out after laying a hand on an access panel. It was Ancient, and already initialized eons ago, unless the Goa'uld had taken a host with Ancient genes or found a slave who possessed them._

“I ordered the platoon to start evacuating the civilians in small groups and to rig the underground base with C-4 with a remote timer.”

 _The base was a brisk thirty minute walk from the stargate – if the straight path was taken. That would leave the evacuees too exposed to the Death Gliders, so they'd take a more roundabout way with a lot more cover. Until the civilians were through the gate, the platoon and his team would provide covering fire._

“Five minutes later, the first batch of Death Gliders showed up. They split into two groups, one to the gate, the other headed towards the temple. Marston shot them down using the Ancient device, but we had casualties.”

_The gliders had strafed the gate and before they were destroyed they'd killed one of the men who'd been guarding the gate and injured the other one badly. He sent his code through to open the iris and then the dead man and the seriously bleeding Marine, a hasty pressure bandage strapped against the wound were sent through._

“They were persistent bastards, and we had to keep changing our position to avoid the bombs and the gunfire the Ha'tak threw at us.” 

_Greer and Dunning kept watch on the gate and he and his team worked together in a mad scramble each time to reposition the weapon far enough away from the previous site. Wang and Donaldson gave him the bad news after they'd done this mad dance six times. The internal power source would only last through maybe two more attacks, Wang said, based on the rate of consumption during the previous attacks._

“The gate timed out but we were able to redial before the Ha'tak's crew could. We held the gate, shot down two more waves of death gliders, and sent the first three groups through to safety. Then the weapon ran out of juice.”

 _He sent his team and Dunning back to the base the direct way with the weapon, and he and Greer covered the gate with anti-aircraft launchers brought from the base. The Marines who'd escorted the civilians to safety set up ambushes on the way back to the temple, in case the Ha'tak took control of the gate._

“Then it got bad. We lost control of the gate when it timed out again and the Lucian Alliance sent fifty something men through.” 

_There couldn't be too many Death Gliders still on the ship and when he'd seen the scruffy group dressed in the leather outfits the Alliance favored, he'd known who was flying the Ha'tak. The weapon wasn't going to be of any use against any more Death Gliders. They needed to get it plugged in, take out the Ha'tak, and then hunt down the ones who'd gotten boots on the ground and retake the gate so the scientists could come out of hiding. He was worried about them. Intelligence on the Alliance had noted a disturbing pattern. The Lucian Alliance was kidnapping scientists, but they had no real reverence for science, and were treating the men and women they forced to work for them like used tissues. Scientists had been tortured and killed; hell, even their own tech people weren't safe from abuse._

“We still had two more groups of civilians to get to the SGC; I ordered them to boltholes in hidden caves. I'd already ordered my team to take the weapon back to the temple; they were close to there when four more Death Gliders came at them. Greer got one, I got one, Marston got one, but the fourth dropped one of those damn Goa'uld percussion bombs. Even Greer and I were knocked out for a few minutes so when we came to I knew my team was unconscious. I sent Greer ahead to protect them and to secure the weapon, and I covered his six.”

_Greer was a fast runner and a good shot. Smart and capable, but he could sense the attitude lurking below the “yes sirs,” the young marine would throw at his platoon leader and himself. With Greer, you might get his obedience, but his respect would have to be earned._

“My men had engaged the enemy behind me, and I took out some from my position. But they were too many, and I knew that they were circling around. They were going to get to my team, despite my best efforts. I radioed Greer.”

_Greer had just reached his team and Dunning. They were still out, could be out for hours. Everett had to choose between three people he loved, because Greer could only carry one to safety back to the underground base._

Rush took a hand and wiped away the tears that he hadn't realized were making his cheeks wet. Leaning his head back, Rush looked at him and Everett wondered if this was the man Rush's wife and Amanda Perry had known. Rush's expression was caring, his hand gentle. 

“Go on, tell me the rest. Draw the poison out, Colonel,” he said, and slid an arm behind Everett's neck pulling him gently towards Rush's shoulder, embracing him with both arms. “I'm here.”

He tightened his own arms around Rush's waist and went on with the memory that had helped spiral him down into a black depression and had made him want to never have to make such decisions again.

“I told Greer to take Wang and the weapon to the base. Of the two scientists, she was smaller than Donaldson, and that would give Greer a better chance to make it. Marston was like me, a soldier, and she couldn't make the device work.” He choked on a sob. “I based my decision on cold, hard logic, Rush. You would have been proud of me.”

“No, no, no, no,” Rush murmured. “You were forced to make a terrible, terrible choice, but it's never done without acknowledging the pain and the loss. If you'd done nothing, you'd have lost them all. It was horrible, I know, but necessary. And it doesn't mean you betrayed the others or cared less for them. It was what it was, Colonel – and then you live with what you've decided and go on and try to do the best you can.”

“Sounds like the voice of experience there, Nicholas.”

“Mmm. What happened afterwards, then?” Rush's clever fingers began unknotting the tense muscles of Everett's neck.

“Greer made it back to the base with Wang. When I got to the rest of my team and Dunning, they were still out. I dragged them over to some large boulders, to give them some cover against weapons fire and then the Alliance caught up with me. I was eventually wounded and captured and they found the other three. They knew who I was and they interrogated me.”

Rush shuddered. “Tortured you, you mean. I suppose they wanted to know about the base? I remember the reports on it. The entrance was hidden in the temple, yes?”

“It was. You had to take out some stone pieces from a wall and rearrange them before the true door would appear. But they also wanted me to spill intel on what we had on the Alliance. They asked about the base scientists, too. I told them they were all evacuated.”

_They shocked him over and over, punched and kicked him, dug into the wound on his thigh, snapped his little finger on his left hand. But he didn't give them a fucking thing._

“Since I wouldn't cooperate, they went back to hurting Marston when she regained consciousness. They tortured her till she passed out, then they started on Donaldson. They made me watch. They were trying to get me to save them by telling how to enter the base. Then an energy beam shot out of the temple and we all saw the explosion when the Ha'tak blew up. They were furious and killed Donaldson. Slit his throat and I watched his eyes go from terrified to hazy to blank to dead.”

_David Donaldson. DD. He'd never have that birthday party when he turned thirty now. Wang had been planning it for months. She was going to drape a conference room with black crepe and lure him into it under the guise of a meeting. She wanted to have black candles on the cake and present him with a cane since he'd officially be over the hill. He couldn't stop thinking that instead of a birthday party they would attend his funeral, if they made it out of here._

“They started in on Marston again to give up the base and forced me to watch. She taunted them, blood dripping from the cuts they'd made on her face, mutilating her.”

_His arms were bound behind his back with a ziptie and the tallest one of the bunch held him in a choke hold, so his eyes were facing Captain Marston. The choke hold wasn't needed. He would have kept eye contact with her anyway so she knew he was there with her._

“Marston screamed at them that they'd never get into the base now, that it was shielded. They hadn't known till then that the device that shot down the gliders and the Ha'tak was also defensive.”

_The entire temple would be under the force shield, according to the ancient text. Greer and Wang at least, would be safe until they were starved out._

“They kept at her, wanting me to radio the base and tell them to drop the shield. I refused, so they started in on Dunning and handed him the radio. Dunning didn't know the password and from what I could make out, the marines I'd left to ambush the Alliance were still fighting the bastards. We just needed to hold on now, hope the platoon would come through. Dunning glanced at me and I winked back. He radioed Greer.” 

_11101775\. The birthdate of the Marine Corps. November tenth, 1775. Greer had suggested it to him for a password, over the radio when he took Wang. Greer was smart. He'd play along for a while and keep buying them time._

“Greer strung them along, said he'd have to consult his superiors, made it seem like the base was full of marines. Then they worked on Dunning again, asked him if any of the scientists had stayed on the planet. He lied to them, but they didn't buy it. The Alliance leader interrogating us ordered some of his men to start a search, look for hiding places. Then he went back to trying to make one of us talk.”

 _Dunning couldn't lie to save his life – or anyone else's. Everett had seen him taken to the cleaners during poker games. His face telegraphed the truth and the other players would tease him by asking what kind of hand he held. The odds on saving the civilian scientists had just taken a nosedive._

“It all ended badly. Wang couldn't stand what the Alliance bastards were doing to us, and she tricked Greer into thinking she was going to lie down, but instead she slipped out a tunnel. An alarm sounded when she did and Greer turned over control of the shield to the guys still left in the base, who had been getting ready to blow it up, and he followed her out. But he was too late.”

_Karen Wang was bright and as cute as a button. She would cuss like a sailor over a stubbed toe but never say a word when she was really hurt. The girl had been as stubborn as Daniel Jackson and as much of a smart-ass as Jack O'Neill. Grief had made her reckless._

“Wang opened fire and took down most of the Alliance members who were torturing us. Marston and I and Dunning hit the dirt and for a few minutes, I thought she was going to pull it off. Then Alliance reinforcements arrived and captured her, too, after shooting her in the shoulder. They realized she was a scientist and packed her off to the gate. They made the three of us kneel down. They wanted the weapon that had destroyed the Ha'tak, and when I again refused to order the shield to be dropped, or to order the scientists they suspected were holed up out of hiding, they shot Marston in the head.” 

_He was spattered with her brains and blood, and he wanted to put his hands around her murderer's throat and choke him until he was as dead as Brianna Marston. Captain Brianna Marston, USAF. Hell of a pilot and a friend who had never let him down, who kept him sane on those long missions where everything was fubarred. They'd huddled together to stave off hypothermia, rescued slaves from a Goa'uld mining camp. She was his best friend._

“The Lucian had just put his gun to Dunning's head, to try again to break me, when he collapsed. Greer had taken him out. I barreled into one of them, knocking him to the ground and Dunning got up and kicked the shit out of another Lucian who'd been distracted by Greer's firing on them. Greer finished them off except for the one I knocked over. I had a few questions of my own.”

 _He gave the one Lucian still alive a chance to spill what he knew. He agreed quickly, said he never wanted to join the Alliance, but that he hadn't had a choice. Everett could hardly stand to look at him. Underneath all that leather was a kid who didn't look over sixteen years old. He knew enough about the Lucian Alliance's recruiting tactics to give the kid one chance to keep on breathing. He took it and told them any scientists they took would be sent through to a secure Alliance world. And he gave up the gate address. Greer respectfully requested to shoot him, but Everett held onto his self control and instead they tied him up, gagged him and hid him for further interrogation back at SGC. Then the three of them headed back to the gate, engaging the enemy, meeting up with the members of the platoon who were still alive._

“There isn't much more to tell. We made our way towards the gate, the few men left of the platoon joining us. The Alliance men were retreating, but they'd found one group of scientists and took the two men and three women prisoner, using them as human shields. Wang was nowhere to be seen. The men I'd sent to guard the kidnapped scientists were dead. And then Greer came through for me again.”

_Greer had brought a round object carefully out of a BDU jacket pocket, and then he'd grinned fiercely._

“That clever son-of-a-bitch had brought with him a percussion grenade from the base's armory, something leftover from when the Goa'uld had ruled this world. As the last of the Alliance started to head up the ramp to the puddle, with the scientists as their shields, he lobbed it at them. They all fell down unconscious when it went off, and we secured the Alliance soldiers. We dialed the SGC, reported in, and sent the rest of the civilians to safety. Then I requested a rescue mission with SG3 and 20.”

“For Doctor Wang,” Rush said quietly.

“Yes. To the coordinates the boy had given us. But Landry was told that I was wounded and he grounded me. Well, he did after the blood loss finally got to me and I passed out.”

_He woke up staring blearily at Doctor Lam's no-nonsense expression, and figured out he was in the SGC infirmary. Before he even started to swing his legs down, she told him that he was going to be prepped for emergency surgery to remove the bullet in his thigh. Then she laid a gentle hand on his shoulder and told him about his last teammate._

“SGC3 and 20 went to that planet dressed as Lucian soldiers. They found her.”

He felt his throat closing up, and again tears flowed from his eyes. He couldn't speak and Rush pushed a hand into Everett's hair, holding him. Helping him to hold on.

Rush said, in a whisper, “She'd fought them the entire time they were stealing her away, and one of them lost his patience and stabbed her. They left her body tied to a wall, a sign there letting people know what happened to those who defied the Alliance.”

He nodded, unable to speak.

“They were brave people, your team.”

Silence was between them as Everett struggled to put the memories away and wiped his face with a shaking hand. Every fucking time he had this dream the grief and horror would engulf him again. It felt like he would never be free of the sights he'd seen, the decisions he'd made. Never.

Finally, he said, “Those are memories I was re-living, and most of it passes quickly, in flashes, when I'd have this dream. But then after we landed on Destiny, the dream started to change. After I find out what happened to Wang, then I'm back having to choose which crew member to save, TJ or Camile or Park or Greer or seeing Matthew or Chloe or Becker or Dunning or Volker or Brody or Eli being shot in the head.”

“But you,” Everett stared into Rush's dark eyes. “You're always where Wang was found, dead because you wouldn't stop fighting. And I know that I failed you. Failed everyone,” he whispered.

“Hush now. It was just a bad dream, and we're fine. The crew is fine, Colonel.” Rush loosened his tight hold and traced Everett's eyebrows with one finger. “I know well how these dreams can take hold of you and keep you a prisoner in your own head. But you're alright, man. C'mon. Back to bed with you.”

Everett shook his head. “I can never go back to sleep afterwards. Not even when I try to drink myself unconscious.”

“You refused another team. I remember the talk about it,” Rush said softly. 

“Yeah. I didn't want to become that close again to people under my command.” He sighed and shifted Rush, causing the other man to steady himself by grasping Everett's shoulder. “O'Neill offered me Icarus, after I was released from medical leave. He offered me the expedition, too, but I put him off about that. Em and I had been having problems even before all of this, and after my team died, things got worse. She asked me to retire. Find a civilian job. But I couldn't just walk away from the program. I took Icarus, hoping it would give me the time to get myself straightened out. Instead, I was barely holding on. I got involved with TJ, for all the wrong reasons, and I was drinking too much, trying to drown out those memories of PIX-874.”

“I'd see you sometimes, when I'd go out for a middle of the night smoke. Back on Icarus,” Rush said.

“Did you? I don't remember ever talking to you.” Everett pictured the high outlook, the rocky ledge outside the entrance to the base. The black sky littered with stars and the brilliant colors of the sunrise and the sunset. It was a desolate place, Icarus, but beautiful in a harsh way. Had been. It was gone now. Blown sky high as he had been traveling through the wormhole to Destiny.

“No. I didn't want to disturb you. You were troubled, that was evident enough. I didn't want to know why, although it was no secret that you'd just come from winning a battle with the Lucian Alliance, but with heavy casualties. I helped look at all that tech, you know. I was loaned out to Area 51 for two weeks, to see if I could unlock anything.” Rush freed a hand from the heavy comforter and held it up. “With my DNA.”

“Find anything?” He hadn't bothered to followup with anything about the base that he'd saved. 

“Aye. Quite a lot, actually. But it's not important now.” 

Rush yawned and Everett felt a flash of guilt. “You should go back to bed.”

“I'll freeze without you there. I'm bloody tired of being cold.”

Everett chuckled, surprising himself. “Me too. Eli and Matt feel the same way, I'm sure.” He pushed the comforter off both of them and gently shoved Rush off his lap as he stood up. “C'mon. I might not go to sleep but I can keep you warm, at least.”

* * *

Everett sighed, and Rush tightened his arms around him. Rush had said, “Let me, it'll be alright,” and Everett had let him spoon him, facing away from him. If Rush started something sexual up, Everett would go back to holding him instead, but he doubted that would happen. 

“Go to sleep, Rush. It's not gonna happen for me.” There was no sense in both of them lying awake, staring at the flash of blue light that traveled over and over around the walls.

“Shall I tell you a story, then?” Rush asked softly.

“A bedtime story? Really? From you?” He couldn't imagine Rush sharing anything personal without having his arm twisted. And he'd made his opinion about fairy tales and fantasy stories pretty plain. The time that Eli had tried to talk him into watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy with the rest of the science team after Eli had synced somebody's laptop to a much larger Ancient monitor in a room they'd dubbed the theater came to mind. Eli had been miffed for days afterwards when Rush had politely declined. Of course, Eli wouldn't let Rush's refusal alone and had pestered him to explain exactly why he didn't want to spend over ten hours watching elves and dwarves and wizards, and Rush had obliged him. Everett remembered some of the terms Rush had used. 'Ridiculous, overblown, and childish, he'd told Eli scathingly. 

So what kind of story did Rush enjoy? And thought that Everett would like to hear?

“Okay, I'll bite. Tell me a story, Rush.” Anything was better than listening to his own thoughts, anyway.

“Close your eyes, then. In this reality, we're here together in your bed; not friends, no, but not enemies either. Not any more. But not lovers.”

Rush's voice had dropped into a soothing cadence, and Everett wondered where he was going with this train of thought.

“Still,” Rush continued, “we know that that the theory which postulates the many worlds interpretation of parallel universes due to quantum physics is true. The many different versions of SG1 that arrived through the gate at Stargate Command supplied absolute proof of that aspect of string theory. And as universes branch off they can become much different from our own universe. Sometimes that seems good. Sometimes not.”

Rush's hand slid into his own. “Somewhere, there is a version of you and me that's fucking right now, and another where we each had our own stasis pod and so never were forced to share one and another where I never provoked you into leaving me on that planet and we worked out our differences without a mutiny happening. Another one where we all died from the bacteria in the ice planet water and another where Riley gated us to the SGC when Icarus was attacked and the Earth was destroyed from the blast as the planet's naquadria core exploded.”

Everett decided that so far, he liked the versions where he hadn't left Rush to die and the one where they were fucking right now the best. Then his thoughts darkened. There was probably a version of them, then, where he hadn't acted honorably and had raped Rush. Was maybe raping him again right now. Rush would fight with everything he had, but Eli was right. Everett was stronger and unless Rush had some sort of advantage with a weapon or training, Everett would always win in a physical confrontation between them.

“Perhaps in one reality I, too, went through the gate when we dialed Earth when we were within the star and the solar flare sent us all back into the past. Maybe Telford came along, in this version. An alternate timeline would not have been made; Destiny would have fallen into the star and so we never would have met the descendants from the crew. Maybe I, too, raised children and helped to recreate civilization,” Rush said.

Everett thought about the constant struggle over leadership that he and Telford would no doubt have engaged in, for decades, and was glad for his doppelganger's sake that Telford had made it to Earth. On Novus, he'd married TJ and they'd had two more children together, before illness had claimed her. He wondered... if Rush had come with them, would he and TJ would have gotten together, or if they had, if he and Rush would have later married after her death. 

“And somewhere, there's versions where you and your team never went to PIX-874. Where they're alive and well and with you still.”

Oh. The reason for Rush's discussion of the multi-verse became clear. He was trying to make Everett feel better. That was touching. And it didn't help. It wasn't as if he hadn't thought about this before, because Rush was right about the impact SG1's doubles had made on anybody within the program. But he lived in this reality and speculating on other pathways the other versions of him had taken was interesting, but it didn't stop his grief.

He had tensed back up when Rush mentioned his team and Rush must have noticed because he ran a hand up and down Everett's arm.

“Ah, well, then,” Rush said, and was silent for a time while Everett worked to control his breathing. He had decided that Rush had fallen asleep after all, when the man started murmuring again, and his lilt was stronger, his accent much more Scottish.

“Almost fourteen billion years ago, something happened to bring about our universe. A wee speck began it, and where it came from is a mystery. Was it the final, dense, infinitesimally small remains of a previous universe? Was it born from a quantum energy fluctuation? Something engineered by a power too great for human consciousness to take in? An experiment by a people so far above us in knowledge and understanding as a one-celled organism is to us? The pattern the Ancients found in the cosmic background radiation may help to answer these very questions.”

Everett listened, more to the rise and fall of Rush's voice than his actual words. He did find Rush's voice soothing, with its quiet tones, the softness he expressed himself with, unless he was ticked about something and was actually yelling at someone.

“When the universe was born, in less than a nanosecond, a repulsive energy field inflated space to where it could have been seen and it's been expanding ever since. As it cooled, quarks clumped together into protons and neutrons. Dark matter may have been formed at this time. Within mere seconds, the first nuclei, the lightest, made of hydrogen and helium arose. No light would have been seen through the fog of particulates that formed.”

Everett hadn't closed his eyes when Rush had began talking, but he did now. 

“380,000 years from the Big Bang, light has been measured, the glow from atoms being created in our infant universe. 380,000 to 300 million years from the universe's beginning the cosmic background radiation is the only light. Galaxies are beginning, clumps of matter that glow the brightest. The first stars form from dense gas clouds collapsing under their own gravity and that of dark matter, forming hundreds of billions of galaxies. Nuclear fusion lights up the stars.”

Rush's voice sounded dreamy, and Everett was sure that he was picturing all of this in his head. He wondered if Rush thought he was telling Everett something new, that he thought that Everett had never studied the Big Bang or the structure of the universe. But it was okay. It was nice hearing him speak. It reminded him of planetarium shows he used to go to see before experiencing space as part of Stargate Command.

“Ten billion years from that wee speck exploding, the universe shifts from slowing down to accelerating again, due to dark energy. And we don't know what the effect of this dark energy will be. But now, present time, the universe is becoming less dense, and fewer stars and galaxies are forming.”

Everett's breathing was slowing down, his limbs felt heavy and comfortable.

“In a few billion years, our home galaxy, the Milky Way, and the Andromeda Galaxy, will collide together in a dance that will span another billion years. It will be unbelievably beautiful to see.”

He waited for Rush to finish the story, to explain the theories about how the universe would collapse, or would expand forever or would be shredded by a rip through the universe that would destroy everything from galaxies to atoms. But Rush didn't say anything more, and for a time there was just the sound of their breathing, deep and slow.

Finally, Rush started to hum softly a beautiful tune that seemed ageless. Everett didn't stir and after a time Rush began to sing the lyrics in little more than a whisper.

They were incomprehensible to him, sung in something that he didn't think was Ancient. There was too much emotion brimming within the soft words and in Rush's beautiful tenor voice for this song to have come from the people who had built Atlantis and Destiny. The Ancient music he'd heard before reminded him of a cross between the Tibetan bowls and bells meditation stuff Em sometimes listened to, and new age spacey music. 

When Rush had finished, Everett asked quietly, “What do the words mean?”

Rush started against him. “Ah, I thought you were asleep.”

“Nope. What language was that?”

Rush hesitated for a while before answering. “Gaidhlig. Scott's Gaelic.”

“Nicholas, what do the words mean?”

Rush made a sound of uncertainty. 

“Nicholas, please. I really want to know.”

“Ah, well, then,” Rush said, with the sigh that meant he would comply. “In English, it would be Son of John, Son of James. It's an old, old song from North Uist. I'm no certain, but I think it's over four hundred years old. A man is hurt during a battle; the leader of his clan, I believe. The song is a lament for his wounding.”

“What made you think of it?”

Rush was silent for a long minute, then he sang, 

“Bu cheannard ron t-sluagh thu  
Dol suas thro thir aineoil  
Air farail ail eo, air farail ail eo  
Cha do ghabh thu 'm bristeadh  
Lamh leigheadh a faladh  
Hi ho hi ri a bho hi eileadh  
Hi ho hi ri a bho ro a, hu o hi o.”

He gave a reluctant sigh, then said, “The words mean, ah, 'You would be a leader of the people, going up through unfamiliar lands.' Then just some nonsense syllables, then, 'You could not be broken, despite the bloodshed.' and that last bit is no any real words again.”

“And it made you think of me.” He had to be very careful now. If he thanked him or complimented him on his singing, he knew Rush would stomp all over his words. 

“Aye,” Rush said quietly. 

If he asked Rush why he'd listened to him about his horrible dream, why he'd let Everett cuddle him on his lap, why he'd tried to bring him out of his depressed mood and help him sleep, he had no doubt that Rush wouldn't tell the truth.

He would deny being kind, or sweet, or nice. He'd scowl and twist what he'd done, making it clear that he'd acted out of self-interest or to promote the greater good by keeping Everett functional as their leader. After all, Rush had given his word to back Everett and not undermine his command anymore. That would have been his only motivation. Or so he would try to make everyone else believe about him.

So Everett wouldn't confront him. And it hadn't escaped his notice that as long as he didn't challenge Rush on his often repeated statements that they weren't friends, Rush did, in fact, act friendly with him. So let him keep his denial. For now. See where this week took them. He could be patient.

Deliberately yawning, Everett said, “That song made me feel pretty sleepy. If you sing it again, I think I'll drift off. Do you mind?”

“No, not if getting some sleep will keep you from being cranky tomorrow.” Rush sounded relieved that they were bypassing the minefield that was Nicholas Rush's emotions. 

Everett snorted. “Pot, meet kettle. You're ten times worse than me when you're low on sleep. At least I've never passed out because I was too stubborn to get some rest.”

Rush gently kicked his ankle. “I was in withdrawal, Colonel.”

“From your other bad habits, I know. And my point still stands. So, did he live, the man in the song? The leader of his people?”

“The old stories say he did. So be quiet, would you now, and go to sleep.”

He began humming the tune again, and entwined his hand with Everett's, holding him against his chest snugly. Everett closed his eyes, feeling comforted, and felt himself drifting off before Rush had finished his song.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The science references come from Stargate shows, the April 2014 National Geographic edition ( _The View From a Giant Telescope_ ), National Geographic videos on space from their online website, and various science references from the Internet.
> 
> The song Rush sings is _'Ic Iain 'Ic Sheumais_. Runrig version and lyrics. (Actually, I rechecked and the lyric I used was in a more traditional version found [Here](http://www.celticlyricscorner.net/macinneskathleen/amhic.htm). ) 
> 
>  
> 
> [Youtube video of 'Ic Iain 'Ic Shemais by Runrig](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSur5CU6tmU)


	12. Discoveries

_The Bridge. Destiny_

Everett yawned and stretched, rolling his shoulders, and glanced around the bridge. Eli and Matt were both busy at consoles, but they looked relaxed. Rush was at the navigation console. He and Rush had come up here after they'd dropped out of FTL. It had woken both of them up, although it would technically be Matt's and Eli's shift for six more hours. Rush had _said_ that Eli could certainly handle monitoring the refueling.

Which didn't mean he wasn't itching to go to the bridge and check things for himself. Everett suggested they join the other two crew members and Rush was dressed, boots laced up, and waiting by the door before Everett had emerged from the bathroom.

In about an hour, Rush had informed him, they would fly into the red giant class M star which was starting to fill their view screen. The star was in the arm of the spiral galaxy they'd jumped to, something that Rush had mentioned was common for this type of star. 

At the moment, his bed partner for the past week was staring raptly out at the sight, his uncombed hair a tousled mess, his thoughts probably a million miles away, or maybe several million years into the future, when the star would probably explode into a supernovae. 

No special care had to be taken, no safety protocols dismantled before they plunged into this star. Destiny's solar collectors would funnel energy again to the ship's systems and hoard it for future use. This star was cooler than their own sun, even if it was more massive. Destiny had survived flying through the type B blue star, which was much, much hotter than the G yellow dwarf that was their sun. Rush and Eli both said it should be trouble free.

They would be fine. The ship would warm back up from the forty degrees it had been since he and Rush had stumbled out of the stasis pod they'd shared. Destiny had plotted a course towards another star system, one where hopefully there were planets where they could gather food supplies and more water. It would take another four days, so most of the crew would remain in stasis, but they would release the rest of the science team and Camile and TJ and James. The day before they reached their next destination, Greer and Dunning and Reynolds and a few other scientists and military personal would be uncorked. They would need them if a viable planet was found for restocking.

He got up from the command chair that Matt had insisted he take and drifted over to Rush. “We're off shift, you know,” he said quietly. “Are you satisfied that everything is in working order?”

“Yes, yes, Eli has it well in hand. But I want to see this. I'll never tire of watching Destiny plunge into a star.” Rush glanced up at him and then resumed looking out the window.

Everett felt like saying, 'Duh,' but he restrained himself. He didn't want to sound like Eli. “I figured; me too. But let's go to the observation deck.” He had a thought. “Hey, let's bring some tea. And a blanket. Put your Ipod on something stirring.”

Snorting, Rush muttered. “You're making this sound like a date, Colonel.”

Chuckling, because it did sound that way, Everett played along. “Sure, let's call it a date. Do you want to make out?”

Rush shot an aggravated look at him. “Talk a little louder, Colonel. I'm not sure Lieutenant Scott heard you.”

“So, that would be a 'no' on the making out?” He grinned at Rush.

“That's correct.” Rush said dismissively, his attention again back on the star.

“After we recharge I have to report in to O'Neill. Before I deal with Home World Command, I'd like a few hours of relaxing to finish out my vacation. So come on. Besides,” he wheedled, “it's a bigger view than here.” Everett flicked the back of Rush's head. “And you owe me.”

“I don't owe you,” Rush said, glancing up at him, looking slightly puzzled.

“I let you win the bet.” Oh, this was going to be fun when Rush was told why. He'd been sitting on this for days, waiting for the right moment to tell him.

Rush rolled his eyes. “We decided it was a tie.”

“I told you not to run so fast,” Everett chided. “You fell to your knees after you finished the twelve miles, Rush. And you stayed down for a good twenty minutes. I, however, stayed on my feet. You didn't know that I knew that, did you?” He nudged Rush on the shoulder.

“So you say,” Rush said, looking away. Hah. Everett could read him like a book by now. He was feeling caught and a little guilty.

“I had Eli set up some kinos to observe the race, so I've got proof, if you need it.” He nudged him again, thinking how much more relaxed Rush was about Everett casually touching him after the week they'd spent together. “I let you win, so c'mon. Time to pay up.”

Rush looked baffled. “If you knew I'd done that, why did you agree to the tie?”

“I thought you deserved a treat.” He grinned at Rush, feeling smug. Rush was going to figure out that Everett had been nice to him again and the look on his face would be so much fun to see.

“You thought I deserved a treat? For what?” Rush said, still baffled. And suspicious. His eyes had narrowed down and he was frowning.

Everett gave him an even wider, toothier grin. “For being a good boy and not slipping away on your own. I know you were tempted, but you behaved yourself.”

Rush's expression was priceless. “Oh, fuck me,” he muttered. He scrubbed at his face with his hands, but Everett could still see him blushing. Something about Everett rewarding him was triggering that reaction. Interesting.

He avoided looking at Everett after dropping his hands. “So going with me to explore the new section was my reward.” He sighed. “Colonel, what have I said about being nice to me. I don't know when the pod's influence is going to wane if you keep giving in like that.”

Reaching down, Everett yanked him up out of his seat, steadying him when he stumbled a little. “We'll be on the observation deck, if you need us,” he called to Eli and Matt.

He murmured to Rush, “Being nice to you has nothing to do with the pod, Nicholas. I just like seeing you squirm when I do it. Now c'mon. This will be fun.”

* * *

“I'm quite sure we don't actually need to do this, Colonel,” Rush said. “I'm fairly sure that the bond has gone dormant. In fact, we should try sleeping apart again.” He stood in front of Everett with his back to the observation window. He'd crossed his arms over his double jackets, looking a little put out.

“I'm quite sure that we do,” Everett said, and sat down on the low couch facing the window. He gave him an evil grin. Teasing Rush had become prime time entertainment for him since they'd shared the pod. Rush usually seemed caught off guard by it, the bafflement on his face shading to incomprehension sometimes, or, better yet, an expression that he was sure was Rush covering up feeling a little shy. He patted the couch. “Consider it your penance for fibbing about the race. Destiny's gonna warm up enough that you can make it through the night without freezing now, so I figured we'd go our separate ways again in a few hours.”

“Colonel,” Rush said with a small shake of his head, but he sat down beside Everett and only grumbled a little when Everett handed him a mug of tea and spread the thick, warm blanket over them. In less than thirty seconds, he was staring again at the star, his eyes far away.

Everett grabbed Rush's Ipod and started scrolling through it, then stopped and laughed. “This is perfect,” he said, but Rush wasn't paying him any attention. He selected what he'd found and put the Ipod back in its dock on the small table. Soon classical music was accompanying the vision of the star growing larger in the windows.

Rush blinked his way free of his enchantment with the star and said, bemused, “Cosmos?”

“I loved that show. I think I was ten when I saw it. Then I got interested in Carl Sagan's books.” Everett felt a flash of fondness for that time in his life when he'd first felt such a sense of wonder about the sky and stars. 

Rush smiled at him, a real smile, not a smirk or that twisted half smile of his. “Aye, I loved it, too. And the music.”

Everett put an arm around Rush's shoulders and drew him closer. It wasn't often that Rush said something like that, something personal about his past. “So we've got more in common than just liking Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

Rush nodded and finished off his tea, his eyes returning to the red giant that now filled half the observation window. Everett sipped his tea and when it was done, he scooted a little closer to the oblivious man next to him. After a while, Rush leaned against him a little more, and they watched their own episode of Cosmos, the soundtrack's different classical pieces providing the accompaniment.

* * * 

Staring into the star's swirling, molten everchanging patterns of deep, dark red-orange interspersed with lighter shades of red and orange and shot through with brilliant patches of yellow and white reminded him of campfires back in Minnesota. The fire would die down to coals and watching them smolder was mesmerizing.

Rush seemed mesmerized. He was blinking slowly as he watched the dance of flames across the window. The star had swallowed almost the entire view now. Everett estimated they had a half hour before entering the star's corona. He wasn't sure Rush was going to last that long before falling asleep.

“Are you sleepy?” he quietly asked Rush, but he didn't shake him back to wakefulness. He was wondering about something...

“Yes,” Rush said, with a blank tone in his voice.

“Stay awake.” He kept his order concise and clear. Camile had hypnotized those poor souls that had been returned to Destiny and had died again, and Rush sounded and looked like they had in the sessions he'd observed.

“Alright.”

Rush had agreed so easily, no note of aggravation or suspicion or disdain or dismissiveness or amusement or pain coloring his compliance. It sounded odd. 

This was maybe an opportunity.

This could become a violation of the trust that had built up between them, if he took advantage of Rush's apparently hypnotized state.

Maybe he wasn't falling into a trance. What did Everett know about hypnosis anyway? He needed some sort of test. 

“Give me a prime number with five digits.” There. If Rush coughed that up without asking why the hell Everett wanted to play math games, then he guessed the other man had hypnotized himself.

“91193.” Rush didn't turn to look at him or change position.

“Why did you pick that one?” he asked, keeping his voice calm and even.

“I'm fond of circular primes.” Rush said it quietly, his eyes still on the star. 

Circular primes had jogged Everett's memory and suggested another test. “Can you name other categories of prime numbers that you like? He'd once heard John Sheppard spouting off a list to annoy McKay. Or maybe to flirt with him. It was hard to tell the difference when it came to those two. John had winked at him, but McKay didn't even notice he was observing the two of them as they waited for Landry to start a staffing at the SGC.

Obediently, Rush murmured, “Annihilating primes, centered square and triangle primes, cousin primes, lucky primes, palindromic primes--”

“Okay, that's enough. What's a palindromic prime?” Everett re-adjusted the blanket that had slid downwards.

“A prime number that if you read it backwards it's the same. Like eleven. Or 727.” Rush answered the question in that same neutral tone he'd been using.

“So is this what mathematicians do for fun? Come up with things like palindromic primes?” Everett said, amused. 

“Aye,” Rush said, his eyes never leaving the star.

“What other math tricks do you know? Say if you were at a party.” Although he had a hard time picturing Rush at a party. Any party. 

“I'm no sure what you mean by math tricks, but for bets or at a party? Maybe card tricks or calculating birthdays or connecting the boxes,” Rush said.

That last item rang a bell for Everett. He was sure he'd seen that puzzle before. “Connecting the boxes? The one where you draw six squares inside a larger square, number them in pairs and then have to draw a line to the pairs without crossing any other line?”

“Aye.”

“Seems a little simple for your tastes,” Everett said dubiously.

“It is,” Rush said. “I stopped betting other children and not so intelligent adults about it when I was seven, but before that I won quite a few coins and snacks.”

For a few minutes, Everett watched Rush gazing at the star, thinking about how easily he had answered questions. Rush seemed really relaxed and his breathing was slow and measured, his expression calm. He had to be...

“Nicholas, you hypnotized yourself,” He felt an obligation to let him know what Everett had figured out. “Tell me if you understood what I said.”

“I understood you, Colonel.” Rush was still breathing slowly and evenly, so apparently he wasn't worried. “I put myself under by looking at the star, I suppose. And by being with you.”

Being with him? Everett wondered what that meant. Well, he could ask, couldn't he? “What did you mean by being with me?”

“That you'll look after me. Look out for me,” Rush said.

Everett felt warmed by that admission, and he said quietly, “I will. Even when you don't want me to, Nicholas.”

Yawning, Rush said, “I know you have. I don't know why you bother.” 

“Maybe someday you'll figure it out. Don't worry about it now.” Everett shifted a little on the couch so he could see Rush's eyes better. They were wide and slowly blinking. Trusting. “Would you talk to me about some things?” 

“Depends,” Rush said, still with that blank quality to his voice. “What do you want to know?”

Everett thought about that. There was so much he was curious about, but Rush really didn't like it when he asked personal questions about his past. He'd basically promised him he wouldn't do it anymore, and he would keep his word. 

“I won't ask you about anything that happened before I met you, okay? Before Icarus. So just relax and don't worry about that.”

“Alright.”

Rush slumped against him, a warm weight at his side. He considered what he wanted to know. 

“Would you tell me what happened the day that Icarus blew up?” He'd been reviewing the past two years – well, five years – pretty intensively this week. Rush had never given him a totally satisfactory accounting for his actions.

“The whole day?” Rush blinked again, still under, apparently.

“Sure,” then he added, “If you want to. I'd like to hear what happened from you.”

Rush said, a little dreamily, eyes still on the amazing site in front of them, “I was on Earth. O'Neill had called me back earlier in the week to Homeworld Command because the IOA was considering firing me for not finishing the last chevron. O'Neill had brought in Doctor Lee to give me a hand. Doctor McKay and Doctor Zelenka were to join us, if we failed. But the night before the Lucian Alliance attacked Icarus, Eli solved the ninth chevron problem in that ridiculous game. I took his solution and adapted it for the power flow distribution. I was up all night.”

Everett raised his eyebrows. Rush's neck had already been on the chopping block? “You'd been trying to crack the ninth chevron requirements before we even moved out to Icarus. You deciphered all the rest of the chevrons, what they required. Why was the last one so much harder?” 

He genuinely wanted to know. Rush had shown such promise in those early days, after he was recruited, or so he'd been told. He'd done a fantastic job on the first eight chevrons, and he'd seen for himself how frustrated the man had been at his lack of progress. As the deadline for getting the expedition up and running approached Rush had gotten more volatile, snapping at his team, throwing things at the white board, but Everett hadn't known he was close to being canned. He'd bet anything, though, that Telford had been talking to the IOA and pushing that agenda.

“I didn't deserve to solve it,” Rush said.

What? 

What the _fuck?_

Everett stared at Rush in disbelief, the man staring at the star's colors like he hadn't just come out with the most... He swallowed, and made himself ask in a mildly inquisitive tone, “What do you mean you didn't deserve to solve it?”

“I mean that I didn't deserve to be the one to figure out the solution.” Rush said it as calmly as he had when he'd given Everett that prime number.

This was extremely weird. Why wouldn't Rush want to solve the damn problem? He had certainly acted like he wanted to solve it.

“So you were faking trying to figure the ninth chevron solution?” He wanted to make sure Rush knew he was asking about the ninth chevron. Maybe he'd gotten confused.

“I wasn't faking.” There was no note of indignation in Rush's tone, he was as calm as a placid lake, not a ripple of apprehension or agitation to be seen.

“But you were keeping yourself from figuring out the last part of the ninth chevron problem?” He hoped for Rush's sake he hadn't been sabotaging his own efforts. 

“That's correct.”

“Why? The entire project was counting on you to come up with the answer.” Everyone from Becker to Telford had known Rush was failing. Everett hadn't given a damn at the time about the project, but the pressure to come up with the answer must have been tremendous.

“I don't want to say why,” Rush said, and blinked.

“Okay,” He felt like he was slowly making his way through a minefield. “Just, did you know you didn't want to come up with the solution when you were working on it?”

“No.”

Frowning, Everett decided to keep digging. “When did you realize it, then?” 

“Just now. When you asked me about it,” Rush answered, and the star reflected bright color across his face. 

“But you can't tell me why because?”

“Aye. Because.”

Son-of-a-gun, Everett thought. God, he'd been trawling through Rush's subconscious, he supposed. But he stopped feeling like he was tricking Rush into talking about things he didn't want to talk about. If he didn't want to answer Everett's questions, then he obviously wouldn't.

Camile had told him that you remembered what you'd said while hypnotized. Saying Rush was going to be upset when he came out of this state was a monumental understatement. He was going to feel absolutely destroyed, the poor bastard.

“Okay. Moving on. What happened that morning, after you'd been up all night?” When Rush had come through the gate to Destiny, he was already half exhausted. The idiot.

Rush said, “I had to put on a suit. I couldn't get the blasted tie right.”

“Um, why, Nicholas?”

“I've never been any good at ties. My wife used to laugh at my attempts and then she'd redo it for me.”

Everett smiled. He'd never seen Rush wearing a tie, come to think of it. The man had preferred jeans and button-down shirts, usually untucked, or layered T-shirts with a vest. And when had he started paying attention to what Nicholas Rush liked to wear?

“Cute, Rush. But I meant why did you have to put on a suit?”

“O'Neill suggested it. We were gonnae recruit Eli, you see. O'Neill was gonnae wear his dress blues to impress the lad, and he thought it might help if I dressed the part. Not that it did. Eli turned us away.”

“But you did talk him into it. Obviously.” Everett remembered Eli's fascination with Icarus. He'd seemed like such a kid back then.

“Oh, aye. After we beamed him aboard the Hammond.”

“Eli told me he spent most of his time on the Hammond watching those vidoes Jackson did for new personnel.” Jackson had done those after Everett had been with the program for a while, so he'd never seen them. “What did you do, take a nap?”

“No,” Rush said. “I rechecked the figures and sent them to Icarus for Riley and Brody to incorporate into the dialing procedure. And talked to Chloe.”

“Chloe? Why?”

“She's a bright lass. It was her idea, if you remember, Colonel, to put the problem into the video game. She wanted to talk about the solution, but really it was to see if I was going to work with Eli, or if I was going to undermine the project, since it wasn't me who solved the problem.”

“Well, were you going to undermine it?”

“Of course not.” It was odd to hear Rush say something like that without any disdain. Just a simple statement without any real feeling. It made him realize just how much emotion Rush usually did pack into his conversations with others.

“Not even a little bit?” Everett asked, not able to keep his skepticism from showing. 

“What would that gain me?” Rush would have probably shouted that at him, if he wasn't under right now. “I wasn't the only one who was sent Eli's solution, you understand. And I wanted to know where the ninth chevron led. I wanted to go on the expedition. The sooner we left for it, the less chance there was that the IOA would remove me from the roster or fire me.”

“So you weren't bothered by Eli's swooping off with the prize?” Everett asked, his eyebrows raised.

“It bothered me,” Rush said, and Everett knew that awake and back to his usual self, he never would have said that. “The lad was lazy, a big child who had thrown away his chance at an education. He'd had a full scholarship to MIT, you know, and he dropped out after only one semester. But he was a genius, unlike me, and so inspiration had won out over hard work. But I thought I could mentor him into becoming what the program needed. Train him to develop a work ethic. He had so much potential. But when we were on Icarus he was bored, distractable. Annoying. He said I deliberately had made him look bad in front of the others by implying his solution was somehow wrong.” 

“Did you try to imply that?” Because it had certainly sounded that way to Everett.

“A little, yes,” Rush admitted. “Petty of me, but it rankled to see everyone fawning over the boy.”

“Didn't anyone ever fawn over you for being brilliant, Nicholas?”

“No. Like I said, I'm no genius.” Rush yawned again and his head felt even heavier against Everett's shoulder. “I've always worked hard for my answers. I didn't think Eli had what it took to actually get a job done, but he's come along nicely; I had serious doubts back on Icarus when he didn't even want to postpone a meal to work out the flaw in the solution.”

“You mean when I invited him to eat at the officer's mess? He was one of the guests of honor at that dinner. The senator's idea, or I guess, really Chloe's. I tried to get you to come, too, you know,” Everett said, remembering how exasperated he'd felt at Rush. First he was kissing up to the Senator in a way that made Everett want to cringe, and then he wanted to ignore him completely. 

“You didn't mean it.”

“I did, Nicholas. But I wasn't surprised you wouldn't come. You hardly ever ate with the rest of us and when you did you seemed uncomfortable.”

“I know when my company isn't wanted. And why would it be? I'm not good at small talk with strangers, and I have no patience for stupidity.” Rush added, “I knew what they were saying about me, there on Icarus. It's the same here.”

Everett didn't want to get into all of that. “We're gonna work on those kinds of things, Ace. I promise you, things are going to improve.”

“I don't believe in other people's promises.”

“You're a lot of work, Rush.”

“I know.”

Everett smiled ruefully. Guess Rush had been paying attention to all those muttered comments of his about how difficult he found Rush to be. “So, while the rest of us were listening to Senator Armstrong embarrass Chloe, you kept working at your whiteboard?”

“For a time, then Becker radioed me that he'd packed me a dinner, so I went to get it. I saw you lot all being chummy, Colonel.”

“If you were going to take a break and eat, why didn't you join us?” 

Rush shut his eyes and then opened them again. “You barely tolerated me, always suspicious of any action I took; Telford would have found some way to make a dig at me. Everyone at that table saw me as a failure, the one who didn't solve the puzzle; I didn't belong and I knew it. I've always known it.”

“So you ate your dinner by yourself.” The thing was – Rush wasn't wrong about the others' attitudes about him that night. But honest to god, he brought it on himself. You act like an anti-social bastard to people and of course you aren't going to be liked. But tonight wasn't the night to point out a few home truths to Rush. Not tonight. He tightened his arm around Rush and kissed the side of his head. Rush didn't seem to notice.

After yawning again, Rush answered him. “I couldn't eat. I lost any appetite I had when I watched you lot from the kitchen. Becker tried to give me a container of food, but I walked out. I went to my room and broke down for a while.”

“You what?”

“Felt sorry for myself. Missed my wife; I sat on my bed and listened to her favorite violin piece. I held her picture in my hand and cried,” Rush said, describing something so personal, so private, so easily to him. He'd never have done that without putting himself under. 

“I'm sorry for your loss.” He felt like a dick. He'd never expressed any sympathy to Rush, although he had heard his wife had died maybe a year before Everett took the Icarus command.

“You would have liked her. Everybody liked her. She was fantastic and a brilliant musician and she loved me. I never understood why.”

Rush was going to hide from him for a month after he remembered what he'd told Everett tonight. His own throat tightened. Rush was being so god damned heartbreaking with all of this. He wanted to tell Rush that he was worth loving, that Everett could love him if Rush would let him. 

He couldn't say any of that. He wasn't even sure it was true. He was attracted to him, but love? Anyway, Rush didn't want Everett to love him. 

“Is that where you were when the attacks began? Your quarters?” He'd known that Rush hadn't been in the gateroom.

“Aye. But I went straight to the gateroom. Riley shouted out that the power levels had spiked into the red and I knew the planet was going to blow. Eli was there and we put our heads together. I told you once that I didn't question my premises enough and Eli did. It was what he did then. He asked, what if the last chevron wasn't supposed to be Icarus's location, but Earth's, the point of origin when this whole ninth chevron puzzle began? Pure dead brilliant thinking. And he was right, of course. I shoved Riley away from the console and aborted dialing Earth. I dialed Destiny and we got a lock.”

“Slow down. Why did you stop people from going through to the SGC?” There it was, Everett thought, the question he'd had in mind this entire time.

“You know why. The power channeling through the gate would have torn apart the Earth,” Rush said calmly.

“So why not dial somewhere else?”

“If we hadn't gotten a lock, I would have tried for an Ida address as far from Icarus as we could get, but I calculated there was a ninety-eight point five percent chance we would blow up that planet also. Pegasus, which was three billion light years away, not four, like Ida, would have been ninety-nine percent.”

“You didn't say anything to Riley about that,” Everett said, suspicion coloring his tone.

“There was no time.”

“And you came up with all of those calculations in just a few seconds?” he asked, skepticism joining the suspicion. Everett just wasn't doing that great of a job at keeping his own feelings out of asking these questions.

“Did you no think that I hadn't considered the possibility that a planet with a naquadria core might explode? That we might have to evacuate?” Rush remained calm. Usually, at this point in any important conversation they'd ever had, Rush would have walked out of the room. It felt odd to hear him actually explaining himself. “Of course I had worked out our options before hand, and they were very, very limited. We could only use a tiny, tiny wee fraction of the power supplied by Icarus' core to dial the SGC. More than that and we would overload Earth's gate, and a catastrophic reaction would have begun.”

“Why didn't you ever talk to me about these kinds of precautions?” Everett added, to himself, why didn't you ever talk to me about anything?

“You didn't care about the expedition, or even solving the problem, Colonel. If you really knew how volatile our situation was, I was afraid you would work to shut us down.”

“You didn't talk about this with anyone else, about the problems evacuating through the gate if the core started to explode?” Everett glanced out at the star. They'd be entering it very, very soon. 

“I set up an automatic program for that very scenario, if I wasn't there or incapacitated. And Doctor Franklin knew,” Rush said.

“Franklin knew, but not Riley?” Interesting that Rush had selected Franklin to be his confidant. 

“Well, Riley was military,” Rush said. “Franklin was always his own man.”

The playlist changed to a new selection, and the piano notes were joined by a background of male voices humming, working up to a musical climax. Everett listened for a while, to think about how he wanted to proceed, before asking, “And you dialed the ninth chevron only because it gave our people the best chance at survival, because of the extreme power surge?”

“No.”

“Well, go on,” Everett said with false patience, “Why else did you dial it then?”

“To see if I was right.” Rush paused, then added, “Well, to be fair, to see if Eli and I were right.”

Everett needed to hear the bottom line. “So what was your real motivation in dialing the ninth chevron?” To save people? Or to know that you'd been successful?”

“What does it matter? The two can't be separated, not really.” Rush was silent for a moment, then added, “If we hadn't been attacked, and Eli had suggested using Earth's symbol, completing the code for connecting to Destiny, then I'd have known I was right when we tested it. I spent years on this problem, Colonel. I gave up... Of course I wanted to know if I was right. Dialing during the attack was another test, yes, but it was our only real hope of surviving. Ninety-nine percent chance of death via an exploding planet in Pegasus or ninety-eight percent in Ida vs taking a chance on an unknown location. I was fair sure we wouldn't blow up where we were headed, though. Even so, even with Destiny's gate slowing down our arrival, we came in at much too great a velocity. Well, you know that firsthand. You were thrown the length of the gateroom.”

“I don't remember much about that,” Everett admitted. “Were you hurt?”

“Just bruised. My glasses were broken.”

“So what did you do when you came through the gate?”

“It was dark, people were screaming and crying and piling up on me and around me,” Rush explained, and the difference between the chaos described in his words and the calmness in his tone was unsettling. “I was a bit stunned, not so much from being tumbled to the floor, but more because we didn't blow up and we were alive. For some reason, I kept looking at my broken glasses. Then I made my way clear of the screaming mass of bodies on the floor and found a console. I realized it was Ancient.”

Everett was picturing the scene, adding in his own vague memories. His crew must have been so terrified and in need of leadership that he hadn't been able to give them. And Rush had scrambled away from them? “You didn't help the others? Treat the injured, help people to move away from where more people were being thrown through the gate?”

“No. All those grasping hands, all those needy voices, I had to get away. I have no medical training, and with all the screaming no one would have been able to understand me telling them to shut up, that we'd figure out where we were. They were a mob, Colonel, not able to listen to reason. So I left then and did what I do best.”

“Which was?”

“Puzzle things out,” Rush answered. “I climbed up the gateroom stairs and looked down. I felt sure we were on a ship. An Ancient ship. It was something about the way the room was laid out, the look and feel of the walls and floor. I went off to explore, found the observation deck, and then Eli and Lieutenant Scott found me.”

“And you discovered the problem with the air filters. Rush, I don't get it. You went out of your way to help me the other night, when I had that nightmare. Why didn't you do that with the crew when they needed help?”

“I know you,” Rush said, like that explained his actions. “And I know what to do for nightmares. I don't know how to set bones or deal with head injuries. I wasn't insensible to the fact that the crew needed assistance. It just wasn't logical for me to give it. Lieutenant Johansen was there, directing people, and I trusted she knew her job.”

“You know what I think?” Everett sighed. “I think you couldn't deal with all those needy people, as you called them, so you looked for an excuse to leave them.”

“You may be right. I've never liked hospitals, seeing all those broken people waiting to be told there's hope for them. It bothers me.”

“You should have helped them, Rush. Even if it was just holding someone's hand who was crying and upset.”

“Except for a few, Brody and Franklin and Park, I didn't know them. Not really. And none of them needed that kind of help. So Colonel, you're saying that I did the wrong thing by leaving when I did?”

“Yeah, I guess I am,” Everett shook his head slightly. “I'm not going to condemn you for it. I'm just realizing that you really do have some blinders on when it comes to other human beings. I think that we need to work on that to improve your relationship with the crew.”

“Maths have always been easier to work out than how to deal with other people. My wife, she helped me with all of that.”

Everett hesitated, then offered, “If you'll let me, I'll help you with it, too.”

“Alright.” Rush had been so serene all this time. But when he was back to his normal self...

“Are you going to be okay with telling me all of this stuff? When you're not hypnotized anymore?”

“Probably not.”

“What if I told you to not let it bother you. That it's okay to talk to me about it and that you don't have to hide from me out of embarrassment,” Everett said hopefully.

“That would only work if I wanted it to be that way,” Rush informed him. “You can't hypnotize someone to do something they don't want to do.”

With a hint of a growl in his voice that for the life of him he couldn't tamp down, Everett said, “Well, can you make yourself want it?” 

“No, I don't think I can.”

“Why are you so much work?” Everett groaned.

“I don't know,” Rush said simply.

“I suppose that means I can't talk you into keeping a decent sleep pattern, but can you at least get some sleep before you freak out about tonight?” Everett grumbled. There was still over five hours before they had to take over for Eli and Matt. 

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Everett sighed, sure that tomorrow was going to be hell. “After we enter the corona, which should be really soon, would you get some sleep?”

“Alright,” Rush said easily. So cooperative. So open. Everett thought he might as well enjoy these last peaceful moments between them before Rush stopped being hypnotized.

“Here, slide down and use my lap as a pillow,” Everett said gently. 

Rush did as he was asked, curled up on the couch with his head on Everett's thigh, still wide-eyed, slowly blinking as he kept his attention on the star, which cackled with colors in the red and yellow and orange spectrums. Everett re-arranged the blanket and played absently with Rush's hair, working out the tangles, brushing it away from his eyes. 

They watched as Destiny entered the star, the windows shielding the brightness down to levels that human or Ancient eyes could tolerate, the music chosen to illustrate the wonders of the universe from the old Cosmos shows still playing at a low volume.

After a while, Everett said softly, stroking a finger against Rush's temple, “Time to go to sleep, Ace.”

Rush blinked twice, sighing deeply, and there was a subtle change in his muscle tension. He shut his eyes and was asleep within a minute. 

Turning off the Ipod, Everett quietly radioed the bridge and asked for a wake up call forty-five minutes before their shift. Then he smoothed Rush's hair one more time, anticipating that this would be the last time Rush and he would be so close to each other. 

“Pleasant dreams, Nicholas,” Everett whispered, closing his own eyes, and let himself fade into sleep.

* * *

A woman laughed softly behind him, her arms subtly readjusting the violin he had tucked to his chin. “Yes, like that, Nick. Does it feel more comfortable now?”

She was from England, Everett supposed, with the way she'd spoken to him – to Rush. He was dreaming again, locked into Rush's body and mind. 

This time he stayed as he was, feeling the heft of the instrument in one arm, the lightweight bow in the other. 

Rush said, “You know, mathematics and music are closely related. Reimann, for example, was able to improve Gauss' logarithmic integral for counting primes from the theoretical graph derived from throwing prime dice to a staircase graph that matches the actual primes by applying what he'd learned from analyzing the harmonic wave lengths of various instruments compared to the pure tone of the note from a tuning fork. You see, he added the--”

“Nick,” the woman laughed behind him, her breath tickling the back of his neck.

“Ah, never mind. I'm boring you, aren't I?” Rush said, sounding and feeling abashed.

“No, darling,” she said, “You aren't. I think it's a fascinating topic and I want you to explain it to me again, with maybe some diagrams, a bit later. Come over to my flat for tea and fill my head with the wonders of maths and music theory. I actually think you've given me the idea for that paper I need to write for my theory class.”

He could feel happiness swelling up in Rush. 

“But right now, you're _my_ student, Nicholas Rush. So, take the bow,” she gently guided his hand up to the violin, “and draw it across the strings like this.”

Rush laughed at the sound he'd produced. “I'll never be a violinist like you, I'm afraid.”

“No, not like me. You'd never be content to be part of an orchestra, to wait upon the conductor to tell you when to play, to follow the sheet music exactly, to be one among many. That's not you, you independent thinker, you improviser. But you have the passion for music, and the talent, and your hands are perfect.” She touched his fingers at the neck of the violin. “They're slender and fine and agile. And the way you move to music, you could never sit perfectly still in the orchestra pit. No, it's very clear to me that you're a born fiddle player.”

“A fiddle player?” And Rush laughed again, a sweet and merry sound, and she laughed with him, wrapping her arms around his waist, still behind Rush. Everett wished she would face him so he could see her.

“Yes, a fiddle player. Cape Breton style with your foot stamping out the rhythm, now that would suit you, half dancing as you play.”

“I think I'd like that. Show me some chords, would you? And let me see if I can make this fiddle sound like something other than a cat with a stepped upon tail.” 

He drew the bow across the violin again, and this time it sounded much better. 

“Yes,” the woman said, a smile in her voice, “you're going to be brilliant.”

“Colonel Young, this is your wakeup call.”

He was yanked out of the dream, and startled, he looked down at Rush, who was asleep still, his lips curving up a little.

God, he'd eavesdropped again on Rush's dreams. 

“Colonel Young, respond.” 

He grabbed the radio. “Young here. Thanks. So, what's our status?” He looked at the window. They were through the star. 

“Gas tank is full, and I've told Destiny to warm up the habitable parts of the ship. We're already at 43 degrees Fahrenheit,” Eli said, with a yawn in his voice. 

“Metric system, Mr. Wallace,” Rush said, sitting up abruptly and pushing the blanket off. “6.1”

“Whatever. I'm just glad that my hands aren't going to feel like frozen claws anymore,” Eli answered. 

“FTL?” Rush asked, turning towards the radio in Everett's hand.

“Course is plotted and we're gonna jump in twenty minutes. So hold onto your socks and stomach. Eli out.”

Everett slowly replaced the radio on the small side table, wanting to stall, to put off this conversation. Next to him, Rush started to vault up but Everett put a hand out and stopped him.

Rush looked at him inquiringly. He stretched his hands up in the air, flexing his fingers, and said, “I could do with some tea before going to the bridge. Are you coming?” He tried again to get up but Everett turned and put a hand on his belly and Rush paused.

“Rush, Nicholas, we need to talk.” He wasn't looking forward to it though. 

“Well, I suppose we do,” Rush said, relaxing back against the couch. He looked calm. Everett thought he must not have remembered what he'd shared last night when the star had hypnotized him. “We're through the star and the ship is warming up. Our agreement for the week is done, Colonel. And as I said last night, I'm fair sure the bond has gone dormant. We probably could have slept apart two days ago, if it wasn't so bloody cold.”

“It wasn't so bad, was it, Nicholas?” Rush looked at him, his eyebrows raised. Everett nudged him. “Living together this past week? Honestly, I felt like I was on leave.” His vacation was over now, he supposed. But he was going back into the fray feeling rested and relaxed. But there was some unfinished business he had with the man sprawled next to him. 

Wryly, Rush said, “Well, we managed to not kill each other between bouts of the bond urging us to have sex.”

Everett decided to bring up the elephant in the room. He'd put it off long enough. “I'm sorry for pushing you into the wall.”

Rush looked at him warily. “I did provoke you.”

“Doesn't matter,” Everett told him firmly. “You should have been off limits.”

“Why?” Rush narrowed his eyes at him. “I've certainly never been off limits before.”

Everett gave him a half smile, remembering being in the pod with him. “Well, before I hadn't kissed you.”

Rush looked away. 

“It's a game changer for me, but I kind of... forgot that when I grabbed your arms and held you against the wall,” Everett said, apologetically.

Rush answered, still not looking at him, “You could have done worse. Thanks for no pounding me with your fists.”

“Yeah. That's not going to happen.” He hoped. Rush had a way of pushing his buttons more than anyone else he'd ever met.

Shrugging, Rush said dismissively, “I wasn't hurt. Don't worry about it, Colonel.”

“Too late,” Everett sighed. “What I did afterwards – I was out of line.”

Rush began rubbing his left shoulder. If they'd been playing poker, it would have been a tell that he was uneasy, not sure how to play his hand.

“I should have asked for your consent before running my little experiment,” Everett said, watching Rush carefully.

“My consent? The uneasiness Everett knew Rush was feeling bloomed on the other man's face.

“I restrained you. Controlled you physically.” Everett cleared his throat. It was more difficult to talk about this than he'd figured. “I believe the polite thing to do before playing around like that is to agree on boundaries and -- I didn't ask you.”

“Playing? Was it a game to you, then?” Rush asked sharply.

Everett winced. “It wasn't. Playing wasn't the right word. I don't know how to really explain it.”

“Colonel, it was the bond.” Rush sat up straight, a hand running through his hair.

“See, I disagree. I think it was us.” Everett took a deep breath. “And we both liked it. Um, what I did. Apparently I've got a kink for doing that with you. And you responded back. But you asked me to let you go and I held off; that was a dick move.”

Rush was silent, looking away.

So, okay, he'd apologized and he'd been sincere about it. But he'd opened a hidden door with what he'd done and he wanted to know what Rush thought about it. If he would tell him.

He put a hand on Rush's thigh. “Nicholas, be honest. I am. I meant everything I said. Holding you perfectly still, and knowing you were turned on by it, well, I loved it. I'd like to try it again, if you would say yes.”

“No, no. We can't be lovers,” Rush said, shaking his head. “The bond is dormant, not dead. Sex would wake it up, and I still don't want to be bonded to you. And you shouldn't want to be bonded to me. And I... I never... nobody ever... You, yes, I can see you being-- No. It must have been the bond.” Rush was scrubbing his hands over his flushed face.

“I don't know a lot about that kind of thing, Everett said slowly. “But I think what a person likes to do in bed can just stay in the bedroom. So what if it makes you hard if I, uh, kind of restrain you; it doesn't mean you're going to want to walk three paces behind me, or whatever.”

“It has to be the bond,” Rush insisted. “You didn't feel like that before we were in stasis, did you?”

Everett rubbed a hand on the back of his neck, thinking about what Rush had just asked.

“I think,” Everett hesitated, then went on, “I think maybe it has something to do with all the frustration I've felt over the years about you. Then in the pod, before we went into stasis, I was holding you up so you could be as close as possible to me. If I hadn't, you'd have fallen. But you trusted me to hold you, to totally support you”

Rush shot him an uncomfortable look and then stared down at his hands.

Everett wasn't done, though. He patted Rush on the leg again. “You gave that to me, and I really liked it. That trust. And knowing you were there in my arms and not off doing god knows what. I liked keeping you with me. That was before the stasis engaged. And in the corridor, I wanted more. More of your compliance. You held where I wanted you. I stopped there, but, Nicholas? I want your complete and undivided attention while I touch you. I want to see you spiraling down into pleasure, incoherent with it. I haven't forgotten what you were like in bed that first night after we were uncorked.”

Rush had let his hair hang down over his face while Everett was spilling his guts, but it did nothing to hide his embarrassed expression.

“The bond must have amplified those feelings,” Rush said, sounding dismayed. “They'll diminish, I'm certain.”

“I doubt it, Ace. But I guess we'll see who's right.” 

“Colonel, there's no sense in discussing this any more. We're done, you and me.”

Everett touched a gentle finger to Rush's eyebrow, tracing it, “You told me once that we'd never be done. But don't worry. You've been clear all along about what you don't want. But before we put this week behind us, I want to ask you a question.”

Rush glanced at him and Everett slid his hand into Rush's.“If there wasn't a bond to muddy things up, would you want to sleep with me?”

Rush was silent, but he didn't try to slide his hand free. Everett waited him out.

“I can't...” he choked out finally, looking trapped and desolate. “It's better if I don't want...”

“Don't want what?” Everett asked softly, feeling like he was holding something delicate and fragile in his hands.

“I need to stay focused on the mission. It's,it's just...” Rush stumbled over his words and then let them die out.

“But you do want to sleep with me,” Everett persisted, hoping Rush would actually admit to what he wanted, even if there were good reasons why he couldn't have it.

“Stop asking me that. It can't happen so we need to forget about it.” The words were harsh, but Rush's voice was gentle. “Anyway, I'm fair sure that when things go back to normal here, any kind feelings you have towards me are going to fade.”

“You're wrong about me.”

Rush squeezed his hand and then pulled free of Everett's grasp. “We should really go our separate ways now, as you said. Try not to have any more nightmares, alright?”

Everett smiled. “And you. Stay away from flashbacks, okay?”

Rush's answering smile was wistful and painful, and just plain sad. 

“Nicholas, there's something else. What do you remember about last night?”

“Last night? Why?” Rush sounded puzzled.

“We left the bridge and came here,” Everett prompted. “You watched the star before Destiny entered it, and you kind of--”

“God.” Rush turned white. He jumped up, his hands opening and closing. 

“Hey, don't freak out on me, okay?” Everett said, hoping to calm the other man down.

But Rush wasn't listening to him anymore. He looked horrified, and then like he was going to be sick. Everett cautiously got up and tried to draw him close, but Rush stepped away, his hands held out to ward him off. His breathing was fast and shallow. 

“Nicholas, you're okay,” he tried, but Rush shot him a look full of misery and then started to back away from him. 

“Leave me alone, you made me say those things,” Rush choked out, a sob building up in his voice.

“No, I didn't. I really didn't, Nicholas. Be fair here. You only answered the questions you wanted to.” He took a step closer to Rush, but the man didn't drop his hands. “I want to help you. Let me help you.”

Rush just shook his head, slowly at first, then more rapidly till his hair was flying around his face. Tears started slipping down his face. He gave a broken sob and then turned and ran out of the observation deck like the Nakai were at his back.

* * * 

 

“Where's Rush,” Eli asked, when Everett relieved Matt, settling himself into the command chair.

Good question, Everett thought. “He's busy.” 

“Busy?” Eli said skeptically. He gave Everett a significant look. Matt caught it and looked at him, and then at Eli.

“Sir? Is there a problem with Doctor Rush?”

“He's upset,” Everett admitted. “He's probably gone to ground somewhere to lick his wounds.”

“Do you want us to look for him?” Matt asked. “I guess he's not responding to his radio?”

“He didn't have one on him when he ran off, but no. I tried contacting him and there was no response.” Everett looked out at the colors splashing against the bridge windows that were produced by the ship being in FTL. “He's going to need some time to himself, so I'll give him two hours. If I haven't heard from him by then, I'll radio you.”

“So what happened?” Eli said, frowning. “It seemed like you guys were getting along just fine for the past few days.”

“We were.” He wasn't sure he wanted to explain what Rush had learned about himself. 

“Did you guys have a fight?” Eli gave him a hard look. He probably thought there had been a repeat of the pinning Rush to the wall incident. Everett sighed. He'd explain about the star. Besides, he wanted Eli's opinion on the science aspects of Rush's actions.

“We didn't fight, but right now he's blaming me for learning something about himself that he'd repressed,” Everett said, and both Matt and Eli gave him blank looks.

Everett rubbed the middle of his forehead, where he could feel a tension headache begin to bloom. “What happened is that he was watching the star before we entered the corona and he ended up hypnotizing himself. He thinks I made him talk to me.”

Eli looked fascinated. “Wow. Really? Did you make him bark like a dog or do something else he normally wouldn't? Admit his admiration for Volker?”

“Eli,” Everett said, heading the kid off from the tangent he was heading for. “It wasn't like that. He was just very relaxed and not guarded. I did ask him some math related things and he gave me answers without wondering why the heck I wanted to know about prime numbers. It convinced me he really was hypnotized.”

“Yeah,” Eli said slowly, drawing the word out. “Not really your area of interest, although prime numbers are the best. So you ordered him to talk?”

“No,” Everett said patiently, “I didn't order him to do anything, really. Well, I told him to stay awake, but he wanted to do that so he could watch the ship enter the star. But ordering someone to do something they don't want to do? Camile says that sort of thing doesn't work with hypnotism, despite all those Sci-fi B movies on the subject I'm sure you've watched.”

“Don't forget the X-files,” Eli said, with that irrepressible grin of his. “Hypnotism recovered Muldar's memories,of past lives and about aliens and his sister. Oh, and Scully was hypnotized so she could remember being abducted.”

Matt laughed softly at that. “The X-files scared the hell out of me.” 

Everett said, “X-files aside, he agreed to talk to me about some things, and his subconscious gave up the information. Not everything, though. Only what he wanted to share with me. He was still in control, even like that. And he knew he had hypnotized himself. Or at least he said he understood me.”

“Sir, what did he tell you then?” Matt asked. “I'm guessing he remembered it afterwards and it threw him for a loop?”

“Yeah. It really did, and I can see why he became so upset. When he calms down I think he'll accept that I didn't make him have that epiphany. Eli, what can you tell me about the power spike from Icarus' core?”

Eli gave a slow roll of his shoulders. “Not much, other than it was bad news. I mean, I can tell you what Rush explained about it, but Colonel, I didn't study it independently.”

Everett's fingers went back to massaging his forehead. “Do you think we would have died if we'd gone back to Earth or even to, say, Pegasus?”

“Based on what Rush and Brody have said, yes, we'd have died and taken out whatever planet we gated to with us.” Eli said. He looked thoughtful. “You should talk to Brody about this, Colonel. And Park. They were on his team on Icarus, although I think Doctor Franklin worked more closely on the issues with the naquadria core with him. So is he upset about dialing Destiny?”

“No. It's something else and it's pretty personal.” Everett said, not sure if he wanted to explain any further.

Eli crossed his heart. “Matt and I won't spread it around, Colonel, but if we know, maybe we can help. And with Rush you need all the help you can get.”

“Sir,” Matt said, “Eli's right. I've seen Doctor Rush upset before, about Doctor Perry dying. I think when I talked to him, it helped, a little. And if he's mad at you, well, maybe I should talk to him again.”

“All right. But keep it to yourselves for now.” Everett took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Rush's epiphany was that he sabotaged himself from figuring out the last chevron because he didn't think he deserved to do it. And until we talked last night, he didn't know he'd done that. I'm sure that's what he's upset about. He wouldn't explain why he'd done that to himself, either, but I'm thinking it must be out of guilt. I mean, why else do people sabotage themselves?”

The both stared at him. “Holy crap,” Eli breathed out. “He must be hating himself right now. Although that explains a lot. After we came to Destiny, and I saw how he was, I couldn't figure out why he'd needed help to wrap up the ninth chevron.”

“He didn't think he deserved to have the honor, the recognition, the satisfaction of finishing the work he'd been doing for over two years?” Matt said. “Dang, that is messed up. No wonder he's upset.”

“It must be something really awful,” Eli said, trepidation in voice. “Something really wrong.”

“Let's not jump to conclusions,” Everett cautioned, but Eli had started a train of thought in his head. What if Rush had been involved in something that betrayed the SGC? Or had been the reason people had died and the guilt had overwhelmed him? Telford and Rush had both alluded to missions they'd been on together that hadn't gone well. Maybe that was the reason he'd shot himself in the foot.

Eli shot him a concerned look. “Colonel, you should take your own advice on that.”

Everett took a deep breath and let it out. Eli was right; he was also getting much too good at reading Everett's expressions. Actually, they all were much more in tune with each other's body language after being through so much together. 

Matt kept glancing at the door. Everett hid a smile. “Probably Rush just needs some time to adjust to what he learned. What's the temperature now? I don't care if it's Celsius or Fahrenheit.”

“Forty-six degrees,” Eli said promptly. 

Everett nodded. “I think we can start letting some people out of stasis. Why don't you unfreeze Camile and send her to me. We've got a lot to talk about. And Chloe, Lieutenant Scott. She's on your shift rotation for now, so I don't expect to see either of you for a while.”

Matt was grinning. “Yes, sir. But call us if you need to form a search posse. Doctor Rush likes Chloe, he might come out of hiding to talk to her.”

“Hey,” Eli said. “Check those kinos I set up in the corridors when you had your marathon run. I didn't bother to recall them. Maybe you can track where Rush ended up.”

“Good idea,” Everett said. “And Eli, get some sleep after you talk to Camile. The rest of the science team and TJ and James can be let out when you wake up. The temperature will be back to normal by then. I'd like you to update the science team, and then you and Brody can cover the bridge next shift. We'll set up new schedules for the day shift. Eli and Matt, you'll have some time off then. Dismissed.”

The two young men wasted no time in leaving. Everett reached for his radio once they'd gone.

“Rush, report.”

No answer. He sighed. He hadn't expected any other response.

* * *

 

“Everett.” Camile laid her hand over his, and he gave her his full attention. “We're done here. I need some time to consider the ideas you've brought up and I'd like to involve Chloe. But I can research the legal aspects of forming an official community when I use the stones. I'd like to stay for at least three days, anyway.”

“Every crew member's going to want extended leave. You might as well take yours now, before things get busy around here again, so enjoy your time with Sharon.”

Camile's expression became stoic. “I don't know if I'll see her. I told her she should let me go, find someone else she can actually have a life with.”

He couldn't think of what to say so he twisted his hand until he had laced her small, elegant fingers with his own. “Yeah, I know.” They were silent for a moment, then he added, “I'm going to report in as soon as Eli and Brody relieve us. I expect to only be gone for a couple of hours.”

“I can hold down the fort. Why don't you go now? It's still early afternoon in Washington, I believe. Anyway, I was going to suggest that you go talk to Rush. You're worried about him, I can tell.” She squeezed his hand and he let her go. 

After some thought, he'd told her about Rush's revelation that he'd sabotaged himself from figuring out the ninth chevron. She was their expert on hypnosis, after all and he figured her knowledge might be useful. She'd been surprised that Rush had put himself under, but had confirmed that he wouldn't have done anything he didn't want to do. 

Everett had also told her that he and Rush had shared a stasis pod, but he'd kept silent about the consequences of that. Learning that Rush's twin had ascended and come back to the SGC as a little boy had put an incredulous look on her face; he'd explained that he'd find out more when he reported in.

Eli's suggestion to check the kinos had paid off. By checking the footage, he'd caught sight of Rush running in the corridor that led to the new section the two of them had been checking out. On a hunch, he'd sent the kino along to the new area, until it was hovering outside the closed door to the series of storerooms they had only begun to explore.

He gently tapped it against the door and waited. And waited. And waited, repeating the tapping every so often. Finally the door's control spun and the door slid open. Rush was standing there, his arms crossed across his chest.

“What do you want, Colonel?” 

Everett flew the kino into the room, stopping close to Rush's face. The other man's eyes were red, his voice choked.

“Are you okay?” His voice sounded a little strange to his ears, coming from the kino that way.

Rush glared at the kino. 

“Yeah, stupid question. Look, I'm sorry for what you found out. How can I help you?”

“You can leave me the bloody hell alone,” Rush ground out.

On the bridge, Everett sighed. “I have to know that you're okay down there by yourself. So, either I leave the kino with you, or you report in by radio every hour.”

“I don't have a radio,” Rush muttered, and ran a hand through his hair.

“So the kino it is. Look, I'll stay out of your way. Just... be careful, okay.”

Rush shot him another look filled with misery and turned his back to the kino. Everett moved the kino so it was up by the ceiling, giving Rush as much privacy as he could while still ensuring the man's safety. They didn't know what was in those crates, or if any of the rooms in this section had been damaged.

The morning hours had given way to afternoon, and Rush hadn't stopped working. Not to eat, not to rest, and he never said a word the entire time. He cataloged the crates methodically, scribbling down lists of the contents in probably one of his last little notebooks. 

He was silent, but his expressions were not. Everett would study closeups of Rush's face, at first by himself, but when Camile joined him, he would check on Rush surreptitiously. Obviously what Rush had learned had shaken him deeply; once Everett caught him wiping away tears. 

The sound of the door to the bridge opening brought him back to the present. He turned to see Chloe step into the room, wearing Matt's uniform jacket. Her long dark hair was loose around her face and a smile was brightening her expression.

“Colonel!” she called out and it felt good to hear the genuine warmth in her voice. 

He stood up and she flew down the steps to the lower level of the bridge, wrapped her arms around him. “Hey, kiddo,” he said to her, and hugged her back.

She laughed and stepped back. “Eli told me everybody made it across the void, but that you and Doctor Rush had to share a pod. Where is he? Eli said Doctor Rush figured out the FTL problem first, on the corridor wall here. I came up to look it over and the version Eli came up with. I'd love to go over the proofs and Eli's asleep.”

Camile joined them and hugged Chloe too. “Chloe, I didn't expect to see you till tomorrow.”

“Matt's sleeping, but I'm not tired. It's cold, though, although Matt said it's like a heat wave compared to this past week.” She plucked at the black Icarus uniform jacket that she'd wrapped herself in.

“Doctor Rush is working right now, but I'll tell him what you said. And I have a favor to ask of both of you, if you're going to stay here, Chloe. I'm going to report in to Homeworld Command and if General Telford switches with me, he's going to want to question Doctor Rush. I don't want them to be alone.” Varro, he thought. He'd unfreeze Varro and assign him to guard Rush. 

Both women looked at him, puzzled. He sighed. “General Telford manhandled Rush a week ago. When he switched with Lieutenant Scott.” 

Camile straightened. “Are you saying that a high ranking member of Homeworld Command assaulted a civilian?”

“He was too rough with him, left bruises on his wrists. But Rush insists that the matter be dropped. I'm going to get Varro and tell him to stay with Rush until I'm back. I'll talk to O'Neill about what Telford did, but you tell me, Camile. Would the IOA censure Telford or make the matter disappear? General Telford appears to be their fair-haired boy these days.”

She looked troubled. “I don't know, Colonel. I'm three years out of date on the political front.”

“We need intel on the IOA's priorities and on the political climate.”

“I agree,” Camile said.

Chloe laid a hand on his arm. “I can help with the politics end. And since we're civilians, Varro included, General Telford can't order us to leave him with Doctor Rush.”

Wryly, Camile added, “If Nicholas cooperates.”

“I'll see if I can talk him into coming up here to the bridge.” He hesitated before saying, “He's... not having a good day.” 

“Take a kino to the stones room,” Camile suggested. “We'll see who switched with you. I'm sure I can tell if it's General Telford.”

“Good idea.” He shot a glance at Chloe. He didn't know how much Matt had told her when she came out of stasis. Not very much, he would bet. They both would have had other priorities.

“Camile, would you brief Chloe on the situations we discussed?” He wasn't sure the entire crew needed to know about Rush's de-aged twin, but the science team should know and his officers. 

She nodded. 

Chloe glanced at both of them. “What's going on?”

“I'll let Camile fill you in,” Everett picked up an extra radio and clipped both to his belt, and grabbed a kino remote. “I'll be back in a couple of hours.”

 

* * *

 

David experienced the odd sensation that was two different minds and personalities switching with each other. He glanced down and saw a kino monitor; the note next to it read, 'If you're David, play this.' The video footage was frozen on Everett Young's face.

He glanced at the mirror that stayed on the table in Destiny's stones room and felt immediately comfortable in the body he was in; Everett Young was the one he preferred to change with, the other man's short, solid body and ingrained reflexes were congruent with his own taller frame. They were both fighting men, after all. 

He didn't know which one of them was stronger, if it came down to a real fight between them. The scuffling because of Emily they'd done was just that. Scuffling. Everett had wanted to punish him, to get some of his own back, but he hadn't gone for David's jugular.

He was capable of it, though. There was a lake of lava, boiling hot anger buried under that world-weary manner. He was sure Rush had experienced it, since it was an open secret Everett had left the man for dead on a planet. 

Rush could drive a saint to murder. The lies he'd told, the selfish actions that had forced this crew to be here – he didn't blame Everett for his actions.

Like a cockroach, Rush seemed able to survive anything thrown at him. Not even dying in a wrecked starship falling into a star had ended him. He still had trouble accepting that a bastard like Rush had been able to ascend, let alone descend again. Little Rush was being just as stubborn as he had ever been, though. There had been no new breakthroughs, just an ever increasing stack of files containing the video documentation of incidents from his adult life from his dreams. 

It was time to turn up the intensity of the Gou'ald device, and when he returned to the safe house he'd give the order. He'd probably have to remind the team assigned to studying the descended man that Rush was not a six year old. To be honest, it was difficult to stay that course. Rush looked like a cute little kid, and when he looked at you with those confused eyes, it was hard not to be taken in. 

He needed to question the version of Rush on this ship, the one that actually looked like what he was. That was his primary mission here. He also intended to search Destiny's database. McKay had researched the Atlantis database for information on the consequences of sharing a stasis pod with no real success.

When David had checked back with McKay after giving him that assignment, McKay had snapped out, “General, all there is some research notes that stasis pods should be made to fit one person and one person only. The Ancients didn't say why. Maybe the files are hidden. Maybe it was such common knowledge that it wasn't included. Destiny's pods, they're different. Ask Rush. Ask the wonder boy. But I'll tell you this. Linking two different minds through the neural interface of the pod and by extension, a starship that shows signs of being sentient, had an effect on those two minds. I can guarantee you there were consequences for Rush and Young.”

Consequences that he intended to find out. If it compromised Everett, then he needed to be relieved of his command. If a volunteer could be found to switch with for an extended time, David would take charge, if O'Neill could be persuaded to agree.

He took one finger and held it over the play button on the monitor, narrowing his eyes at Everett's image. Despite their rivalry over Destiny, he considered Everett a good friend. 

He'd apologized for his actions regarding Emily, the lies he'd told to break up Everett's marriage when he'd been brainwashed.

The man should have retired after the bloodbath on PIX-874. There would have been no shame in doing that. Everett had served honorably for more than enough years. Not all wounds were visible and not all of them healed, even in time. Everett had been the walking wounded for long enough. He couldn't see it right now, of course, but relieving him of the burden of Destiny, and of this castaway crew, would be the best thing for him. Away from the weight of this command, his old friend might finally find some peace.

He pushed play. 

Everett nodded on the tape. “General Telford, welcome aboard. We're doing fine, power levels are replenished from the star and we're on course for a system that hopefully has planets we can gather food on. We'll be there in four days. I know you want to talk to Doctor Rush. Two things. First, there will not be a repeat of the shower incident. Varro is not in the chain of command and he's keeping an eye on Rush for me. The second thing is that I talked to Rush about what happened before the other Destiny was destroyed. Here's what he told me about your double, and his.” 

David listened as Everett relayed what he'd gotten out of Rush about that whole sorry mess. Unfortunately, it didn't really shed any light on how Rush's twin had ascended. According to what this Rush had said, Rush's twin had accidentally killed David's double; he'd been overcome with despair and guilt, leading to his sitting in the chair and preparing to die. 

David wasn't sure he bought that explanation. Where Rush was concerned, it was best to be skeptical. He was surprised that Rush had confided in Everett. It made him feel even more suspicious when it came to Rush's and Young's apparently changing relationship.

He stood up and started for the exit, but Camile Wray's voice coming from a kino in the room stopped him.

“Identify yourself, please.”

“Hello, Camile. It's David Telford.” He made sure his tone was friendly, warm. Camile was IOA and he had strong ties with that organization. Besides, he liked her. She'd been damn brave during that bomb incident at the Pentagon. 

“I believe congratulations are in order, General. Chloe and I are on the bridge. I'm afraid the rest of the crew are in stasis or asleep.”

“I need to talk to Rush. I don't care if he's sleeping or not. Do you know where I can find him, Camile?”

“He should be on his way to the bridge,” Camile hedged.

“But?” he prompted.

“He might have gotten distracted on the way. You know how he is, David.”

Obstructive, stubborn, anti-authority, lies as easily as he talks, brilliant, pragmatic bastard, David thought. Out loud he said, “Better than most people on this boat, I'd say. I'll come up to the bridge shortly. Telford out.”

 

* * *

Rush failed to make an appearance on the bridge, to apparently no one's surprise. David radioed him, but Rush didn't answer him. Again, nothing shocking about that. The man was the most unhelpful son-of-a-bitch David had ever met. If it hadn't been for his DNA, even his intelligence wouldn't have been enough to recruit him into the program. Not with the way he seemed incapable of truly cooperating within a command structure. 

It wouldn't be too much longer before Rush was removed from Destiny. While they hadn't found another Icarus type planet that was stable enough to use, there were other workable options that would allow for the exchange of personnel from Destiny to the SGC. 

Everett was no doubt being briefed on them right now. 

He squinted, staring at the console where lines of Ancient waited for him to decipher them. Everett already had a headache when David had swapped with him, now it was much worse from searching for data on the stasis pods. He patted the uniform jacket pocket. Where the fuck did Everett keep his glasses? 

“You don't know where Rush is holed up?” he asked Chloe and Camile.

“No. Colonel Young knew and he was okay with him being there,” Chloe said, apologetically. “He didn't tell us, though. You know, Doctor Rush can probably hear you, if you want to tell him anything.”

Chloe had inherited her mother's beauty and thick gorgeous hair. If she'd ever had the arrogance that her parents had in spades, being out here on the far side of the universe had knocked it out of her. And she was firmly in Rush's camp. He wondered if there was a way to change that. Maybe Rush would manage to do that for him. The little bastard had a way of poisoning most of his relationships after a time. 

Hell, it had happened between him and Rush, after all. He'd actually liked the man when he'd first worked with him. Admired his scientific and mathematical style and the way he wouldn't stop until a solution to a problem had been reached. At times, he'd even felt attracted to him. Nothing surprising about that and David rarely acted on the interest he sometimes felt about another man. He might have done so with Rush at some point, but then things had gone so far south between them that they might as well have been at the Antarctic base.

Standing up, he decided he would look for the pain-in-the-ass. Maybe take a life signs detector with him. He'd check the usual haunts, then begin a sweep of the ship in logical places where Rush might be working. And Varro. Two life signs fairly close together. And he'd stop by Everett's quarters and see if he could find the glasses Everett wore for close work and kill this headache. 

* * *

He shoved at the control button for the door to Everett's quarters harder than was necessary, allowing a small amount of the frustration he was feeling to spill out in a satisfying meeting of flesh and metal. 

Everett's hand might be a little sore, though. He shrugged. Everett should have told him on the kino where to find Rush. He was protecting him again, and that did not set well with David.

He hadn't found him at the control interface room or any of the other secondary control stations. He wasn't in the mess or in his own quarters. Everett's quarters were close to where he intended to go to start a serious search, so he'd pick up the glasses now.

The lock spun and the door slid open. He stepped through, looking towards the desk. The he stopped walking. He looked, he turned slowly around, and he narrowed his eyes. 

There were equations scribbled over practically every wall surface in Everett's quarters. And he knew damn well _Everett_ hadn't put them there. He glanced at the bed. It was rumpled and unmade and clearly two people had slept in it. 

Slowly, with a sinking feeling in his gut, he trod over to the bed and looked more closely. There was a long brown hair on one pillow. On the small table next to the bed were two pairs of glasses. Two. He picked up the pair with the broken arm, that had been somewhat repaired with a thin wire, and slid them on. They made his eyes water. He tucked them into his uniform pocket. 

The other pair fit his face as if they had been made for it, and he could feel some of the eye strain ease as he picked up a book that had fallen on Everett's side of the bed and read the blurb on the back. Yes, these were Everett's glasses, and the other pair, well. You didn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce what had happened in this room. 

Rush had been staying here and sleeping with Everett. _Sleeping with Everett._ And Everett had let him write on his walls, had indulged him. 

_It was cold in the ship. Sure, we bunked in together to share body heat. Nothing you and I haven't done before with our teams, to stay warm,_ he could hear Everett reply if he questioned him about what he'd seen in this room. 

So... were they having sex? 

Methodically, he began to search, not knowing exactly what he was looking for, just anything that might shed more light on what was happening between his friend and Rush. 

He found a flashdrive hidden in the bathroom and was immediately suspicious. 

Everett's laptop was on his desk, and he plugged in the flashdrive. 

On the footage, Sergeant Spencer shot himself, after listing his reasons why. David frowned, puzzled. He didn't know why Everett had hid this. It clearly showed that the man had committed suicide. Anyway, this video had been shown already and had cleared Everett of the murder charges that had been leveled at him, after the gun had been found in his quarters.

He kept watching, and then a few minutes later into the footage, he saw Rush come cautiously into the room. Rush looked shocked and put a fist up to his mouth when he saw Spencer's body. He muttered something David couldn't make out. He reached for his radio and then paused.

Rush looked down at the gun and scrubbed his hand over his mouth and chin. He looked undecided, and then took the radio off his belt. He held it for a long moment, and then put it back. 

He reached down and closed Spencer's eyes. “You poor bastard,” he said softly. “Be at peace.”

Then he took off his vest and wrapped the gun in it. “Sorry, Colonel,” he said to himself. “You've left me no choice.”

Then he must have seen the kino because the last image was Rush frowning and coming closer, his hand closing over it before the screen went dark.

Everett had kept the proof to himself that Rush had framed him. Officially, an unknown person had hidden the gun in Everett's quarters. 

Why hadn't Everett released this damning proof of Rush's actions?

Was he blackmailing Rush with it? Holding it over his head in exchange for good behavior? If so, Rush hadn't kept his end of such a bargain.

But David could use this video. The IOA, the Senate hearings that would be taking place, this proof of Rush's unsuitability to be here was golden. 

He needed to make a copy and hide it. Let other witnesses see it, so they could testify. 

He rummaged through Everett's desk but didn't find another flashdrive. He looked around the room, opened up Everett's chest of drawers at the foot of the bed. There wasn't anything there, either.

Then he spotted the edge of a strap sticking out from behind a large comfortable looking chair. When he tugged it out, he saw it was a computer case. He opened it. Besides the laptop, which he gathered was Rush's, there was an assortment of cables and a couple of flashdrives. He took one and used Everett's computer to see what was on it. It wasn't anything interesting, just mathematical stuff. 

He replaced the case behind the chair again and copied the file onto the new flashdrive, and then returned the original one to its hiding place in the bathroom. 

He pocketed his evidence and left the room. He had to find a secure place for this before he tracked down Rush.

* * * 

After two hours of searching, he finally located Varro and Rush. 

Varro was leaning against a wall in a corridor in a section of the ship that had been off limits. Rush must have done something to make it accessible after getting out of stasis.

“General Telford?” Varro said quietly. 

He was tempted to pretend to be Everett, and clasp a hand on Varro's shoulder and send him off. But Everett probably had set up a password, and there would be no benefit in being found out in a lie.

“Yes. I need to talk to Doctor Rush right now.” Everett could be back any minute. He couldn't afford to waste any more time. “I know he's in this room. Open the door.”

“It's locked. From the inside. You'll have to ask Doctor Rush if he'll open it and talk to you,” Varro said, resting easily on the balls of his feet. 

“Why did he lock himself in?” He didn't buy that Rush was afraid of him. Not Rush. He wouldn't be even when he should be. 

Varro shrugged and didn't answer him.

He strode over to the door and yelled, “Rush, this is Telford. We need to talk about your double. Open the damn door; I don't have much time left here, thanks to you being as cooperative as ever.”

Telford's radio spat out Rush's voice. “General Telford, I'm very busy. What exactly do you want from me?”

Shaking his head at the prima donna attitude, he depressed the talk button on the radio. “Open the door, Rush. I want to do this face to face.” 

“I fail to see why that's necessary,” Rush said back, dismissively.

“You can't handle it, can you?” David said, raising his voice. “That's why you're hiding behind a locked door.”

“Your rather juvenile effort to goad me into doing as you wish by challenging me is pointless, General. I'm busy. Now what do you _want_! Rush said, raising his own voice back at David.

“You really want this conversation to happen where Varro can hear it, Rush?”

“Varro? Why did you bring him out of stasis and with you?” Rush sounded puzzled and annoyed. 

“ _I_ didn't. I'll give you three guesses as to who thought you needed a babysitter,” David pointed out with satisfaction.

“Bloody--” The radio went silent and in a few moments the door lock spun, opening the door.

Before David could take a step forward, Varro was there next to him, one big hand on David's upper arm. Quietly he said, “I'll give you both privacy, as long as you and Doctor Rush stay in eyesight. Don't make me regret this, General.”

David smiled tightly at the former Lucian Alliance soldier. “We know each other very well, don't we, Varro. Kiva saw to that. I know what you're capable of, and you know just how far I'm willing to go for what I want. I'm not going to hurt him or break him.” He lowered his voice. “I don't have the time.” 

Varro gave him a thoughtful look. “Rush held out a long time against Kiva's torture.”

“He was in my body.” David remembered feeling pain in Rush's body from the beating Everett had given him, that he was sure he would have been able to shrug off if he'd been in his own strong body.

“He's small, but he's tough. A survivor. I think he'd surprise you, General.” He let go of David's arm and they both walked into the room together, falling back into synch with their pace. They'd fought together for the Alliance on more missions than he could remember easily.

Rush was waiting in the middle of the huge room, one hip cocked, arms crossed over his chest, a notebook in one hand and a pencil in the other. He was wearing a BDU jacket that swamped him and he looked pissed.

“Doctor Rush,” Varro said and veered off till he was out of hearing range, unless he and Rush started shouting at each other.

“Nick,” David said, and gave him a malevolent grin.

“David.” Rush narrowed his eyes at him. “I'm quite sure Colonel Young passed along all that shite he got out of me about what happened with my twin and yours.”

“He did.”

“Then what do you want!” Rush threw at him,” I know my twin came back as a child. There's not much I can do about that, now is there!”

“He's with me, Rush. I'm his guardian now, and he's not a child, although he looks like one. He's got his adult memories still, buried in his subconscious.” David moved closer to Rush until he was less than an arm's length away. Putting as much conviction into his voice as he could, he said, “He knows something, something so huge that he left the higher plane to tell us about it. He's you. So what would make you give up ascension and come back to Earth?”

Rush ran a hand through his hair. “How do we know that other ascended beings didn't just kick him out? He could have broken one of their laws, and being sent back to Earth is his punishment.”

“Interesting that you see coming back home as a punishment,” David pointed out. “But while I have no trouble believing that you would fuck up the rules for ascended beings, I don't think that's why he came back, or was sent back. He's trying to communicate with us, despite being blocked. He only recently got his math skills back, after he almost died and ascended again. And he still can't talk, although he understands English now. He always understood Ancient.”

“Communicating how?” He had Rush's full attention now, the pencil and notebook absently placed back into a jacket pocket.

David explained everything little Rush had done to clue them in, from making a model Destiny out of Legos to drawing pictures of the Nakai. 

Rush listened intently, despite his bitchy mood. He finally sat down on a crate that had been pulled out from a storage rack, and started rubbing the back of his neck and shoulder. Off to the side, Varro watched them.

Quickly David explained about the healing ability and the telekinesis little Rush had demonstrated and about using the Gou'ald memory device to bring up more memories.

“Yes, that's a good idea about the device,” Rush said, and brought a fist up, letting his chin rest upon it. “You should increase the setting, I think.” 

David raised his eyebrows. “Not going to protest that I might damage your twin's mind, psychologically scar him?”

Frowning, Rush said, “Has he had any memories of our childhood?”

“No.” And now that Rush brought that up, why hadn't the brat dreamed about being a kid in Glasgow, his father? The mother hadn't been around, according the research his team had done.

“He'll be fine,” Rush said dismissively. “The abilities you describe, he must have gotten them while ascended.”

“So you can't do telekinesis or heal injuries?”

“Are ye daft? O' course not.” Rush was sounding... more Scottish. David knew Rush. He knew him and when Rush's lilt increased it meant he was more upset than he was letting on.

“Do you know Nakai programming?” he barked out.

“No,” Rush said scornfully, raising both eyebrows. “How would I?”

“Your twin does,” David shot back at him. “The current theories are that you learned it from the Nakai ship you were fiddling with on the planet where Young left you to die--”

“I was trapped in a rockslide. He thought I was dead,” Rush interrupted in a Pavlovian response, the practiced lie alibiing Everett's version of what happened. 

David snorted. “Bullshit, Nick. But it's not important right now. The other theory is that you learned it from the Nakai when they were mind-raping you. But I have a third theory, since you say you don't know Nakai programming.”

“You think my twin learned it after he ascended. That would mean he visited the Nakai, spied on them,” Rush said, sounding faraway.

“Would you do that if you were ascended?” David stepped closer to Rush.

“Aye, I think I would,” Rush said, his face tense.

“Why?”

Rush spread out his hands. “The Nakai pose a threat to Destiny. Learning about them would expose any weaknesses they might have, and I suppose I would break the rules the ascended Ancients govern by to save this ship.”

“But you – I mean, your twin, didn't come back to Destiny. He came to Earth,” David said urgently, because that point was important, damn it, and sometimes he felt he was the only one who really understood that.

“What would the Nakai want with our little backwater planet?” Rush seemed to just be talking to himself. He wasn't even looking at David. “They don't think we're worthy or advanced enough to deserve Destiny, so there's nothing they'd want to take from us...”

David could see Rush thinking, coming up with an answer and testing it. Rush's expression froze, then he glanced up at David. He began clenching and unclenching his hands. 

“What?! C'mon, Nick. What are you thinking?” He dropped down to one knee so that he was face to face with Rush.

“Atlantis. Atlantis is on Earth,” Rush whispered.

Atlantis? “How would the Nakai even know about Atlantis?” David asked, frowning.

Rush looked at him with dread in his dark eyes. “You said it yourself, General. How did the Nakai learn about Atlantis? When they were mind-raping me and Chloe.”

 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Heaven and Hell by Vangelis, music from the Carl Sagan show, Cosmos.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDvKsQAafGU&list=PL04C0B46FB8FF54CD&index=2)
> 
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> 
> [The solution to the connecting the boxes puzzle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=JP&v=jrF5ghMvc04&hl=ja)


	13. Reporting In

**General Jack O'Neill's office, Home World Command. The Pentagon.**

Everett absent-mindedly reached for his glasses in his jacket pocket and then let his hand fall back down. Right. _Telford_ didn't need glasses to read. He settled himself a little more comfortably in the waiting room chair and began studying the tablet that had been prepared for him, bulletin point style, on the pertinent events of the last three years regarding Home World Command. 

Pegasus, the Wraith, the Jaffa Nation, he skimmed over those updates with not much interest. Intel about the Lucian Alliance, he read carefully. They were still a significant force, the damn terrorist-pirates, raiding and ravaging and still drug running that devil-corn, Kassa. Varro had said that if they could they would certainly make another attempt to dial in to Destiny and take it over. They'd have to find another Icarus style planet or take over the Langarans' gate, first, though, He read about the negotiations with the Langarans to allow Destiny to be dialed with their gate. No real progress there. Maybe when some of the younger people took over the government, they'd be more open to trying it. Science and math were being shared with universities there, he read, with that goal in mind.

There was an alternative power source being explored; a way to rig a series of ZPMs together to power the gate. ZPMs were a scarce resource, though, so completing the research on how the Ancients had manufactured them was a top priority in the science division. And anything dealing with subspace was dangerous. McKay was in charge of that project. Everett would have to run all of this by Rush, get his opinion. See if he thought their gate could be adapted to use ZPMs. If it could, then they could send some people home after extra ZPM's were brought from Earth.

If Rush would even talk to him. The man usually didn't hold onto a grudge very long, but he might make an exception this time. Everett felt conflicted. Sure, he'd known Rush wouldn't be pleased when he realized he'd actually talked to Everett about things that mattered, important things. He'd expected Rush to make some sour, cutting remarks and stomp off, cranky and indignant that he'd opened up. He'd expected him to feel disturbed about the epiphany he'd had but to hide his reaction away. 

But Rush had looked so hurt when he'd realized he'd talked to Everett. Hurt and horrified and vulnerable. He'd been distraught, not angry. Not then. He was now, but Everett wasn't sure if Rush was more angry at him or at himself. 

But he didn't think he'd done anything wrong. Rush had chosen to talk to him. He'd refused to answer some questions; he hadn't been a mindless puppet with Everett pulling his strings. Maybe he shouldn't have asked him anything, but he wanted to understand the man. He needed to understand him, in order to help him. And he couldn't in all honesty say that he trusted Rush one hundred percent. A lot of the trust issues he had with his chief scientist had been based on whether or not he'd saved them or condemned them when he'd dialed Destiny. For the safety of the crew, he'd needed to hear Rush explain himself. 

He'd have to remind Matt and Eli that what he had told them about Rush had been in confidence. Both of those young men had proved that they could keep sensitive information to themselves, so he wasn't worried they'd blab that Rush had unconsciously punished himself by not figuring out the ninth chevron. He decided that it wouldn't help anything for him to tell Rush he'd shared that information. No sense in making Matt and Eli a target for Rush's anger.

“Colonel Young?” Everett looked at the red-haired airman standing in front of him. 

“Yes?” He'd been so caught up in thinking about the current mess with Rush that he hadn't noticed the young man getting up from his desk and walking over to him. 

“General O'Neill can see you now.” He held out a hand. “I can hold onto that for you, sir,” he said.

He relinquished the tablet to O'Neill's aide, and followed him back to his desk. “The General said for you to just come on in,” the airman said, pointing his thumb at the inner office door.

He knocked once, then stepped inside. O'Neill looked up from the desk monitor and waved him to a seat. “Everett, I presume?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And how are things on the far side of the universe?” O'Neill said, in that expansive, almost facetious way he had of speaking, but Everett knew he'd be paying close attention to every hesitation, every shift in tone, every twitch of body language Everett showed him. Jack O'Neill was nobody's fool.

Everett said evenly, “We didn't lose anybody traveling through the void, the refueling in the star was uneventful and we're powered back up. So far nobody's tried to destroy us or take us over. There's no sign of the Nakai or the machine ships. Destiny's plotted our course to a star system four days from now, hopefully we'll be able to gather food and water. I'm gradually reviving the crew, essential personnel only for now, to avoid straining our resources. I'd say we're doing just fine, sir.”

“You know, Telford's got a bee in his bonnet about you and Rush sharing that stasis pod,” O'Neill said mildly. “He's put McKay onto researching the effects, and while he hasn't come up with much, McKay insists that there had to have been consequences for you and Rush. Yadda, yadda, sharing your brains with each other science talk, blah, blah, blah.” He eyed Everett meaningfully. “You feeling okay, Everett?”

“There's been no problems, sir,” Everett said. “I'm fine, and so is Rush. But I do have a problem with General Telford.”

O'Neill raised his eyebrows. “Other than he wants your job?”

“General Telford was too rough with Rush last week, when he came onboard. He grabbed him out of the shower, which was inappropriate as hell. He left bruises on Rush's wrists and arms.” He sounded like he gave a damn, Everett thought, mentally kicking himself. 

O'Neill didn't comment, but his eyes were sharp and focused on Everett.

“Rush refuses to press any charges, though. He wants the matter dropped,” Everett said, trying not to sound like this meant anything to him personally. “If I bring this up, will the IOA censor Telford or make the incident disappear? Three years ago he was thick as thieves with them. What about now?”

“Nothing's much has changed on that front. If anything, those ties are even tighter.” He gave Everett a sideways look, “But this isn't the first time Rush has protected someone by refusing to bring up charges. Someone, who, let's just say, left him on a planet to die, although I'm sure that someone had a good reason for doing it. Someone, let's just say again, who left him with obvious bruises from choking him and black eyes. Someone who he seems to be getting along with now. If you want Telford investigated for assaulting Rush, Telford is going to bring up what happened with that someone. Go with Rush on this one, Everett.” 

Everett sighed. “Yeah, okay. That's what Rush said would happen. You know, he just shrugs and doesn't seem to care that he's been assaulted. Just goes back to work. It's not just what happened with Telford. I found out that he's been the recipient of an ongoing blanket party since we landed on Destiny.”

“He told you?” O'Neill sounded doubtful.

“No, I only wish he had trusted me enough to tell me that a vigilante group had been teaching him lessons. I saw the bruises and made him explain how he got them,” Everett said, remembering how Rush had thought Everett was probably behind it all. 

O'Neill looked concerned. “You gonna take care of this, Everett?”

Everett nodded. “I am. Rush said he doesn't know who they are but they blame him for things that were his fault and things that weren't. He failed to see the larger implication.”

“That if it's happened to him, it can happen to others,” O'Neill said, frowning. “What are you planning to do about it?”

“We've been in one crisis after the other since we landed on that bucket of bolts, but since we've caught a breather, I'm working with Camile Wray to change the structure of things on board, build in some safety valves for the discontented. We're in a unique situation that's going to require some unique solutions, sir.”

O'Neill nodded at him. “Keep me informed. So. Rush.”

“He's been cooperative. Shocked that his twin ascended and then returned as a child; doesn't know how that happened, he says. I debriefed him and General Telford was given the information on what happened to his twin on the other Destiny.”

“Ah, copies of yourself. Gotta love the way the universe screws with us on that one,” O'Neill said, and Everett remembered the teenaged clone of O'Neill's. Christ, he hoped he never met up with another version of himself. Going through the documentation from Novus had been strange enough, seeing and reading about the turn his life had taken. 

“Sir, what's going on with Rush's twin?” 

“We'll get to that, Everett. So, you've had significant problems with Rush in the past. You trust him to be honest with you now?”

Everett thought about how he had refused to let Rush stay out of the pods so he could fix the last one. He hadn't been able to trust him to do the unselfish thing if he'd failed. And even now...

“Let me make myself clear, sir. Rush is probably the hardest working, most dedicated crew member I have. He thinks fast on his feet, and has saved our butts numerous times. He's put his own life on the line. He's gutsy and decisive, and I'd call him a genius, even though he doesn't think so.”

“I sense a 'but' coming,” O'Neill said turning his chair and stretching out his legs.

“He's up and down on his people skills. He can read people, but doesn't build on that to have better relationships with the crew.” Everett shifted in his seat, feeling restless. “He can be such an ass, and prickles up when ever anybody tries to help him or compliments him. He's got a reckless streak. He has major difficulties trusting others, including me, although that's improving.” Everett hoped Rush still trusted him. “He's isolated himself from most of the crew. He considers them strangers. It's an unhealthy situation that I intend to fix by integrating him with more than just the science team, and the few military personnel he's worked with on trips through the gate. But I can't honestly say at this time that I do trust him one hundred percent. His past history of being manipulative and lying is hard to get past.” 

“And yet, I feel there's another “but” round the corner,” O'Neill said, almost airily.

“For all the shit he's pulled there's another side to him. He's capable of being kind, and has gone out of his way to help some of the crew. Chloe Armstrong, for instance. He's mentored Eli from the beginning. Sir, I'm aware of General Telford's intentions regarding Rush and despite the fact that my chief scientist is a lot of work, I want him on Destiny. He's an asset I don't intend to lose.”

“Daniel likes him.”

Everett smiled slightly. “Sir, didn't Jackson befriend the Destroyer of Worlds?”

“Yes, yes, he did,” O'Neill said, with a dignified air. “And more Unas than you can shake a stick at. So Rush is in good company, at least.”

“Sometimes I think communicating with an Unas would be easier than getting through to him,” Everett said, his smile widening. 

O'Neill raised his eyebrows in a manner that suggested he was doing it deliberately. “You know, Everett, one thing all of your performance feedback reports have in common is noting that you're one persistent SOB. Rush is stubborn, I know that, and a handful, but my money's on you bringing him around.”

“I'll try not to disappoint you, sir,” Everett said, grinning outright now. Then he sobered back down. “This investigation General Telford is pushing, he's going to bring up why Rush dialed Destiny. I've heard Rush's version, but it would be better if there was a way to verify it outside of my science team. I'm afraid the IOA will insinuate that they're lying to protect Rush or that he duped them.” 

“He told me he had to dial Destiny instead of Earth or anywhere else in the Milky Way galaxy to avoid blowing up the planet, when he showed up here on the stones after Icarus was evacuated,” O'Neill said. 

“And he told the crew you had put him in charge,” Everett said dryly. 

“I heard he'd said that. I told him to bring those people home.”

“Which he translated to being put in charge,” Everett said, shaking his head. Thank God Matthew had gotten things under control. From what he'd heard later, the crowd might have lynched Rush after that announcement. “Actually, I think he's figured out that being in charge is more bother than he wants to put up with. It's not the life and death decisions he has a problem with, he can handle that aspect just fine. But to him the rest of it would feel like being nibbled to death by ducks or bleeding out from a thousand paper cuts, and he wants no part of the bureaucratic crap that we have to deal with.”

“Do you believe him? About why he didn't dial Earth? I didn't believe him but for all I know he might have been right.” O'Neill grinned at him. “Back in my gate team days that was what I had Carter around for, to handle the science stuff.” 

“Yeah, I do believe him now, since he verified it under hypnosis,” Everett said slowly. “If he was wrong in his calculations, they were an honest mistake. But I'm betting his math was correct.”

“I think you're right about the IOA investigation. One problem is that most of that research was at Icarus, so there's not much documentation elsewhere to back Rush up or expose his lies. He's gonna be screwed without some heavy-duty science hitters confirming his claim,” O'Neill pointed out. 

“I agree.” He had something to run by O'Neill about that very concern. “Sir, General Carter was in the Hammond, while Icarus was being attacked. I assume she was monitoring what was happening with the core, so she could get the hell out of there before it exploded. Her testimony that Rush made the right choice in dialing Destiny would go a long way with the IOA. She's got the science credentials, or if not her, maybe McKay or Lee.”

“Carter would be best, with maybe the other two chiming in. McKay improved on Rush's work, so he's familiar with it. I'll give them a call.” O'Neill shot him a sharp look. “So, hypnotism?” 

“Unintentional,” Everett sighed. “Rush was watching the star we entered to refuel and accidentally put himself under.”

“Ah. He say anything else interesting?”

“He's bad at ties,” Everett said, deadpan.

O'Neill smiled. “I noticed that.” He picked up the phone, but before he dialed, he threw out, “I could go for a hotdog. How about it, Everett? Want to move this out to the courtyard? I'm buying.”

So O'Neill wanted to talk off the record. “I could use some sunshine and fresh air. I haven't been off the ship for three years,” Everett said mildly.

O'Neill said, “Let me make this phone call, and I'll be right out.”

Everett knew a cue when he heard one; he'd wait for O'Neill in the outer office.

He heard O'Neill say, “Mary D? You busy?” as he opened the door.

* * *

The ice tea was cold, sweet and delicious. Everett was savoring his drink; the tea on Destiny tasted nothing like the real thing. He took another sip and then set it down on the picnic table and picked up his hotdog and started eating. God, what a change from the protein paste he'd lived on for the last week.

It was nice out here in the Pentagon courtyard. He glanced around at the five walls that enclosed this green space. Civilians and military were both represented in the groups and individuals who were buying refreshments or walking around, looking at the exhibits. It all looked so normal, and felt so foreign.

“So, Everett,” O'Neill said, after swallowing a bite of his hotdog, “Level with me about the stasis pod and Rush. And it's up to you, but I think this would go better off the record.” 

Everett agreed wholeheartedly. He'd prefer not to say anything at all, but O'Neill's legendary bullshit detector was on alert. He'd come clean if it was off the record. 

“Okay, Jack, off the record works for me. It's, um, worse than what happened to SG10, though.” He looked down at his hands for a moment, spread out on top of the picnic table. “In order for both of us to go into stasis in one pod, certain benchmarks had to be reached. The pod monitored it. The directions said the two people should be lovers or good friends, ideally. Rush and I were neither, of course.” He hesitated then, but before he could continue, O'Neill spoke up. 

“I think I see where this is going,” O'Neill said. “Did I ever tell you about the time I offended a priestess during their planet's harvest ritual? Before she would let Carter take a look at the gizmo we came to see, Daniel had to bathe me in a public cleansing ritual, to wash away my sin, and then had to give me a hand, so to speak, so I could contribute some fertility to the fields. In a cup. Pretty cup. It sparkled. My hands were tied. Did I mention that?”

Everett stared at him for a moment, and then said, “Call me a skeptical son-of-a-bitch, Jack, but I never heard that story at the SGC.”

“It was classified,” O'Neill said, and then winked at him.

It could be true. SG1 had a lot of weird shit happen on their missions; he'd read the report of the time Jack had ended up married and then aged rapidly before Janet Frasier, one of the legendary Stargate Command docs, had reversed the damage. He didn't remember if Jack had gotten a divorce, though.

It could be true, but it probably wasn't. Just Jack throwing out some bullshit to settle Everett down.

O'Neill took a bite out his hotdog, which was loaded with sauerkraut and mustard, and he arched an eyebrow at Everett.

Everett took a deep breath. “Rush and I made out in order to get in sync with each other so the pod would engage. We were still kissing when we were frozen. When we were uncorked, we, uh, wanted to finish what we started. Rush felt compelled more than me, though, not really sure why. Anyway, he figured out a workaround to stop the bond – that's what he called what was happening to us – and it worked. We did a lot of platonic touching instead, hugs, holding hands, neck massages, that sort of thing. It involved neurotransmitters; lowering dopamine and raising oxytocin, he said. By the end of the week, the cravings had gone dormant.” He thought about that first night but decided it counted as a near miss. “We didn't have sex, although there were some close calls.” 

“Anything else?” O'Neill asked, and took another bite of his dog.

“I shared a couple of his dreams,” Everett said. He'd almost forgotten about them.

“Okay,” O'Neill said. “You want my advice, Everett?”

“Sure.”

“Admit to the dream sharing. That will get McKay and Telford off your back.” O'Neill lifted his lemonade to him in a toast.

“All right. I'll put that in my official report,” Everett said, and took a bite of his own hotdog, greasy and salty and covered in sweet ketchup and tart pickle relish. It was wonderful. He hoped it gave Telford heartburn.

O'Neill finished his foot long dog off contentedly. He was dressed in black BDUs and Everett wondered if he missed SG1. Of the original team, only Jackson and Teal'c remained. Everett thought O'Neill was doing a good job with Home World Command, though. Circumstances change. People change. He hadn't wanted command of the expedition and had done a half-assed job at Icarus. But circumstances change and people change. He was where he was needed and he wanted to continue to lead Destiny's mission. They'd all gotten off to a rocky start on board the Destiny, but this crew was the right crew, and he intended to be the leader they deserved. Civilians and military. One community on the far side of the universe.

He thought again about last night, about last week. He'd ended up enjoying spending the time with Rush, something he wouldn't have predicted was possible. It wasn't just the physical end of things, either, although it had been a long time since he'd been kissed the way Rush had kissed him. He'd just had fun with him, with watching his expressions, calming him down when the man needed it and stirring him up through teasing him when he'd needed that. It had felt sweet that Rush had let go of his usual guardedness and let Everett help him, whether it was unbuttoning his jackets when he'd been too confused or letting himself be held by Everett.

He smiled when he remembered how Rush had cuddled up against him, thinking that Everett was still sound asleep. 

If they'd let the bond form, Rush could have had that every night. Rush would say it was artificial, though. A spell cast through the pod and into their brains. One that would probably wear off and leave them ten times more miserable and hating each other.

It didn't matter, though, because Rush had said no to them trying out a relationship. 

O'Neill got up suddenly and waved at a dark haired woman walking down the sidewalk. “Be right back,” he said, and jogged towards her.

Everett watched as a small boy darted away from the woman and ran towards O'Neill. It looked like he was going to run straight into him, but at the last moment O'Neill swooped him up into his arms and threw him up in the air. 

Funny. They were close enough to Everett that he should have heard the kid's scream of glee as O'Neill caught him, but the boy was silent. Whenever Everett had done that to his brother's kids they'd yelled and giggled at the top of their lungs. O'Neill put the boy down and the kid pulled a yo-yo out of his pocket and spent some time showing O'Neill several simple tricks.

Everett watched them idly, his thoughts drifting back to the conversation he'd had with Rush before heading to the stones room.

It hadn't gone very well. 

Rush hadn't wanted to open the door to him. Everett motioned for Varro to stay back out of sight and had yelled that he'd brought Rush a radio.

Rush hadn't responded. So typical of the man.

“Okay then, keep the kino. Camile is monitoring it right now.” He was betting Rush would open the door to swap the kino for the radio for more privacy, and sure enough, the sound of the door unlocking and sliding open proved him right.

Everett stepped into the huge storage room and walked over to where Rush was standing, looking tired and miserable. He handed him a radio and the other supplies he'd brought. The water and jerky Rush put in jacket pockets and he clipped the radio to his jeans. 

Turning his back to Everett, Rush started to walk away. Everett reached a hand out to stop him, but thought better of it. Rush would go ballistic if he did something like that. 

“Hey, I'm sorry about what you learned last night,” Everett said, with as much sincerity as he could, and Rush stopped in his tracks. 

“No you're not,” Rush said, still facing away from Everett. “You love prying information out of me.”

Everett considered himself a fairly patient man, but Rush had a way of pushing his buttons. He took a deep breath and let it out. “You're right, in a way. When you and I have real conversations about things that matter, well, I fucking love it. But I didn't pry anything out of you. You chose to share some things with me. Not everything, though. Don't you remember not explaining why you sabotaged yourself? You had free will, Rush.”

Rush pivoted and strode up to him, every step an aggressive message, and his eyes were stormy, his expression livid.

“Free will?!” Rush hissed. “You did something to me, you must have. Why else would I have shared all that shite with you?”

“Because you wanted to? You weren't drugged, Rush,” Everett said, feeling his own temper starting a slow burn. “I didn't trick you, or coerce you, or voodoo you into talking. I didn't slip you a mental roofie. You were capable of saying no, and you exercised that right when it suited you. I'm not the bad guy, understand?” 

“But why did you even ask me if I would answer your questions? Why couldn't you have let that go, and just enjoyed the star with me? Why do you want to take me apart?” Rush was trembling now, this man who never even flinched when guns were pointed at him. 

Everett gentled his tone, “Look, I won't deny that I'm curious about you. I want to understand you. I want to help you. You're drowning and you don't even know it.”

“I'm not,” Rush said, but he sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than Everett. His eyes were wide, and a little fearful. 

“You are, Nicholas.” He said, trying to sound as placating as he could, “Look, this information sharing doesn't have to be one way. Ask me questions, I'll tell you just as many personal things as I've learned about you.”

Rush gave a sharp shake of his head. “No, Colonel, I won't be doing that. I don't want to get to know you better. I keep telling you that I don't want or need your help. I will do my job, and I will keep my word, but that's it. We need distance between us; we need to forget what happened because of the stasis pod. I keep explaining that to you over and over. You never listen to me.”

He did reach out then, to draw Rush to him, but the man stepped back, hands held out in defense, in a mute plea to leave him alone. Like he had done when he realized that Everett was going to beat the crap out of him when they were trapped on the Ursani ship.

“We can't touch,” Rush choked out. “No more pats on the back, no more ruffling my hair, no hugs, no neck massages, no holding me by my arms; nothing, Colonel Young.”

“Rush, any friendly physical actions I do aren't because I'm being controlled by the bond. I know the difference, okay?” Everett said, moving a little closer. “I just want us to be on good terms.”

Rush looked at him then, his eyes showing so much pain. “I trusted you.”

Everett said, trying his best to sound soothing and to mask the annoyance that was simmering in him, “I know, and I felt honored about what you said. That I'd look after you, look out for you. It's still true.”

“You took advantage of me.”

Everett gritted his teeth. Damn Rush and his histrionics. “Okay, ignore the truth. Maybe when you've had some time to think things over you'll get your head out of your ass and we can have a real conversation about the things you shared with me. Shared, Rush. Not forced.”

Rush gave him the look that he always seemed to have when he clammed up on Everett. The look he gave him when Everett had questioned him about flying through the star the first time, when he'd realized that Rush had known they'd be okay and had kept it to himself. 

Everett rubbed the back of his neck, and sighed. “Look, I'm going to Homeworld Command for a couple of hours. Telford is probably going to switch with me and he's going to want to talk to you again. I think you should go to the bridge and report to him there, where Camile and Chloe can keep an eye on him. He won't try anything with them there. He values the IOA and Mrs. Armstrong's help too much to risk alienating them because he acted like an ass to you in front of them.”

Rush shook his head, a stubborn look on his face. “I'm staying here. I've a lot of work to accomplish.”

Everett sighed again. “I hope you reconsider, but if you stay put then don't let Telford in down here, if he shows up. You know he's going to try to track you down.”

“I can handle Telford.”

Everett had no intention of telling him Varro was there to make sure that Telford didn't handle him. The bruises from a week ago on Rush's arms were just starting to fade.

“Call the bridge if there's any problems. Report in every hour.”

“Yes, yes, Colonel,” Rush shot at him, impatiently. “I'm not stupid except for when it comes to trusting you.”

Everett held his anger back. Rush had to be shaken up immensely by learning he'd sabotaged himself from solving the puzzle that Eli had completed. He needed to be patient with him, no matter how difficult he was being.

He stepped very close to Rush. He made no move to hug him, but Rush lowered his eyes and went still, like a bird afraid of being snared if it moved away.

Very quietly, Everett said, almost directly in Rush's ear, “You're hurting, I get that, and I'm sorry for it. I'll see you when I return.”

He turned away from Rush and pulled the kino remote from his pocket, summoning the kino down from the ceiling and propelling it towards the door.

He stopped before stepping through and looked back. The man's hands were together in front of his face, fingers touching his mouth, and almost in a prayer position. The expression on his face seemed sad and angry to Everett; his thin body looked tight and tense, like he was on the verge of running away. But there was nowhere to hide for long. Not even Destiny was big enough for that. He nodded at Rush, but Rush just stared at him, and didn't nod back.

He'd been lost in his memories while watching O'Neill and the woman and boy, idly tracking that O'Neill had dropped to one knee and had placed a hand on the boy's shoulder, talking to him. After a while, the boy helped O'Neill get back up, which had Everett making a mental note to ask O'Neill if his knees were giving him trouble again. 

It wasn't until the three of them started walking towards him that he realized that O'Neill hadn't just been saying hello to an acquaintance. 

He got up from the table when they arrived, O'Neill holding the boy's hand, and looked at the woman carefully. She was very pretty, dark eyed with beads in her braided hair. She gave him an assessing look, and kept a hand on the back of the child's head.

O'Neill said, “Mary Dupree, this is Colonel Everett Young. As I explained, he's visiting us today from his ship. Everett, Mary D was Doctor Amanda Perry's personal nurse for many years. And for the time being, she's taking care of this little guy. He doesn't talk, by the way, but he can understand you.” 

“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Dupree,” Everett said, with his best Sunday manners his mother had pounded into his head. “Doctor Perry did an exemplary job for us on Destiny. I wish I had gotten to know her better.”

“She mentioned you, Colonel. Going to Destiny was the best experience of her life, she said,” Mary offered, a civil smile on her face. Doctor Perry had been firmly on Rush's side, and he had no idea what Rush had told her about the problems he and Rush had experienced.

“And this is Malin Tripp,” O'Neill said, looking down at the boy. He was dressed in blue jeans and a plain white T-shirt, his sneakers were red and scuffed at the toes. There was a monitor of some sort on his wrist, larger than a bracelet or a watch, but not bulky. His hair was a combination of brown and blond and was in his eyes. The boy raised a hand and pushed his hair out of his face and the gesture caught Everett's attention. It seemed familiar. “You've met before, but he probably doesn't remember you.”

It was when he looked at the distinctive dark eyes that Everett realized what O'Neill meant and said quietly, “He was Rush?”

“Yep,” O'Neill drawled.

Everett took a closer look at the boy. He could see some of Rush's features. The pointed chin, the shape of his nose, the arch of his eyebrows, and the eyes, of course; the boy's cheeks were more rounded, and his hair lighter in color than Rush's. The child was watching him with with a wary look on his face, and that expression, too, looked familiar.

“I explained about Destiny and the stones; not sure he really buys the whole swapping consciousness thing,” O'Neill said. 

Everett felt a bit lost as to what to say to this boy. Maybe the little guy thought what O'Neill had said about the stones was just magic; at his age it probably made more sense than understanding that two minds could exchange hosts between billions of light years.

He dropped down to one knee, so he wasn't towering over the kid. “Hello, Malin,” he said carefully.

The boy's expression changed lightning fast from wary to interested. His hands and fingers began moving rapidly as he looked expectantly at Everett. 

Mary chuckled a little and then said, “He says hello, that his name is Malin Tripp and not Doctor Nicholas Rush, although he might grow up to be a doctor because he knows how to help people that are hurt. He says he knows you're not General Telford because you called him by his name, and the General never does that. He asked if he could come and see your spaceship, because that would be really cool. He's not sure exactly how the stones work to switch minds, but he thinks it must have to do with quantum entanglement.”

Everett looked up at Mary. “Quantum entanglement? I thought he might think it was by magic. He's what, four or five? How would he know high level physics like quantum entanglement?”

Mary said, “Doctor Lam estimated his age to be around six years old when he came through the stargate a little over six months ago. She thinks he's just small for his age. And talk to him about what he knows, Colonel. He'll understand you.”

Everett looked back at Malin. “How do you know about things like quantum entanglement?”

Malin rolled his eyes, a disdainful look on his face, and above him O'Neill murmured, “See the resemblance?” Everett choked back a laugh because yes, yes he did. 

“I guess you know a lot about math and physics, then?” Everett said, in a kind of an apology for doubting the little guy's skills.

Malin nodded, and his hands gestured frantically. Mary said, “He says, yes he does know a lot about math and physics and he can even figure out the answers sometimes when Doctor Bill can't, _and_ he can do cartwheels, too, would you like to watch him?”

Everett smiled, because his nephews and nieces used to beg him to watch them do tricks. He'd found it endearing. He looked into Malin's brown eyes, and to him they were the eyes of a child, innocent and curious and vulnerable.

“Sure,” he said, still smiling, and stood up. 

Malin gave him a shy smile in return and let go of O'Neill's hand and ran a short distance away to a grassy area free of tables. He stretched his arms up and did a very passable cartwheel.

Everett and O'Neill applauded, and Malin beamed at them. 

Mary said, “I'll give you some privacy,” and settled herself on a nearby picnic table, watching Malin and clapping for him as he did his next trick.

“He took to you really fast, Everett,” O'Neill said quietly. “Some of the team studying all of this think it's a vestigial echo of his former life. He tends to approach or warm up quickly to the people he liked when he was Rush.”

Everett raised his eyebrows. Either that meant Rush had grown to like him and had kept it to himself, or the theory was wrong. Probably the theory was wrong. 

“I see your skepticism and I'll put in the pot some video evidence. One of Malin's dream memories showed you holding on to Rush and helping him down the corridor. He looked like crap, sunburned and filthy. Malin didn't recognize himself as Rush, although he knows by know what Rush looks like, and he described what he saw as Rush being helped by a friend. He was told your name.”

Everett was quiet until what O'Neill had said clicked. “That has to have been when Rush returned to the ship after taking out the Lucian Alliance soldier who killed Ginn and Doctor Perry. He was so exhausted he could barely stay on his feet. In fact, when I left him in my quarters to attend to some ship's business for less than ten minutes, he was asleep on the floor when I came back.”

“Your quarters?”

“To question him. But he was so dead tired I couldn't wake him up when I returned.”

“Did you leave him on the floor?”

“No. I picked him up, cleaned him up, and put him in my bed to sleep it off.”

“I see,” O'Neill said, leaving Everett to wonder just what it was O'Neill thought he understood from all of that. Everett would have done the same for any of the crew.

“General,” Mary said, rejoining them. “Why don't I go get our hotdogs while you watch the show. I've seen it daily. When he's not talking about growing up to be a doctor, he thinks he might like to join the circus and do gymnastics.”

“The circus?” Everett said, bemused at the thought.

“Some of SG1 showed him a video of Cirque du Soleil. Vala and Teal'c, I think. He was star struck,” Mary said in a dryly amused tone. “You should feel honored, Colonel. He doesn't offer to show off for General Telford or for most of the team at the safe house.”

On the grass, Malin had done three somersaults in a row. O'Neill passed over a folded up bill to Mary and she left, stopping to say something to Malin. 

“Jack, what's going to happen with Malin?”

“Sit down, Everett. There's a lot to cover.”

* * *

Mary rejoined them, with a small hotdog for Malin and herself, plus drinks. O'Neill had just finished explaining about the plans for Siler to adopt the boy and how they'd been put on hold. The IOA refused to let Malin visit with his parents, citing that it could hamper Malin recovering more of Rush's memories. Everett felt a mixture of anger and pity; it just didn't seem right to keep him from his family.

O'Neill gave Malin a thumbs up after another acrobatic maneuver, this time two cartwheels in a row. “Mary D., how's he doing?”

She glanced at Everett and O'Neill. “He's a resilient child, so that's in his favor. He's energetic, loves to run and climb and jump. He's not a picky eater, but he only eats about half of his food.”

Like Rush, Everett thought, thinking about Rush's eating habits and how he frequently jogged or ran to where he was going.

Mary continued with her report. “He's healthy, though. He's cooperating with the team, but I don't think it's because he actually wants to do the things they're asking of him. He gets this look on his face and I can see that he's struggling with not throwing a fit. He hates the device that they put on him at bedtime, but he just bites his lip and lets the medics attach it. He cries sometimes at night, under the covers. He keeps a picture of his family that he drew under his pillow. General Telford hasn't found that one yet to throw away and the rest of the team is pretending they don't know about it.”

“Does he ask about his parents, his brothers and sister?” O'Neill said, drumming his fingers on the top of the table.

“No. I think he's afraid to say anything. But he draws them a lot on the whiteboard, and then he'll erase them. He draws you, Jack, and me, and SG1 and Doctor Lam as well. It seems to comfort him,” Mary said. “He loves playing outside, and he's enjoying doing math; I don't understand any of it but they record what he's done and send it to other scientists to review. I think he'd do it most of the day, but General Telford has set up a routine for him; he wants him to play with Legos and playdough, to draw, to look once again at the photos of Doctor's Rush's life, what they've been able to find at any rate. There's not much from when he was a boy and young man. Malin listens to recordings of musical pieces Doctor Rush's wife had played. He loves them but they make him cry. He can't articulate why.” 

“Thanks, Mary.” To Everett he said, “You can read over the reports from the team before you go back to Destiny. Doctor Rush might be interested in them, too.”

“Yes, sir,” Everett said, and with that order their informal talk was over. 

O'Neill looked at his watch. “I've got some meetings to get back to, very classified, yadda, yadda. Colonel, stay as long as you like out here. Mary D?”

“General Telford arranged for us to be transported back to the safe house when your visit was over. Our escort has been hanging back, but there's always someone monitoring us. I'm going to let Malin play for a while longer, though, and we'll probably go back inside to see some of the exhibits before we leave. Thank you, Jack for carving out time to see him. He really likes you.”

O'Neill smiled but there was a tinge of regret, of sadness, to it. “See you next week, then. I'll send Malin over to eat.”

Everett watched as O'Neill put a hand on Malin's shoulder and talked to him. Malin raised his arms and Jack picked him up. Malin hugged him hard around the neck, and Jack set him back down. 

A stranger watching that scene might think that this was a grandfather saying goodbye to his grandson. All normal. But if you didn't think Malin was a child, that he was Nicholas Rush pretending to be a child, or that he'd somehow fooled himself into thinking he was a child, than this little scene would have been pretty weird. 

O'Neill obviously thought that Malin was just a kid. No ands, ifs, or buts. Telford would have been disgusted, though, to see Malin hugging O'Neill, since he clearly thought Malin was Rush, adult Rush. 

Everett examined his own feelings. He could see traces of Rush in Malin, in his physical features, in his expressions, maybe even in his personality, but Malin wasn't Rush to Everett, even if he had once been Nicholas Rush. That was in his past. Malin had been reformed, remade into his own person. Maybe he was carrying a message; or maybe the trauma he'd experienced before he'd died, ascended, had been carried with him. Hell, a lot of people believed in past lives. After the things he'd seen with the program, he'd keep an open mind.

He'd allowed his Rush's traumatized twin to go back to the doomed Destiny, when he should have been kept in the infirmary. The man had chosen suicide because he didn't think Everett would treat him fairly over Telford's twin dying. He hadn't trusted Everett and that had led to the decisions that had sent a small mute child through the stargate to Earth.

Malin ran back over to the picnic table to him and grabbed his hand. Everett felt a wave of protectiveness that he'd only felt one other time, when he'd kissed TJ's belly, falling in love with his unborn child. 

He hadn't protected his baby; they'd lost Carmen. 

He'd do whatever he could to protect this child.

* * *

Malin was flushed and panting, and Mary told him she was calling a halt to the gymnastics so he could eat. He managed to get ketchup all over his face and only ate half his hotdog. Mary handed him a napkin but it didn't quite do the job. 

“I'll go get more,” Everett said, indicating the crumpled napkins. “I could use another ice tea anyway.” He pulled out Telford's wallet and extracted a ten dollar bill. “Thanks, David,” he muttered, tucking it into his BDU jacket pocket, and set off for the food area.

He hadn't gotten eight feet away when a small hand slipped into his own. Stopping, he looked down to see Malin grinning up at him, looking like a mischievous pixie.

“You want to come with me?” he said, turning to catch Mary's eye.

Malin nodded vigorously, and Mary waved them off. They walked along, Malin swinging their hands together a little. “So, General O'Neill said you made a model of Destiny, my spaceship, out of Legos?”

Malin nodded and pointed to himself, then to Everett and then up in the air. “Um,” Everett said, remembering what Malin had signed about earlier, “Are you asking if you can go with me to my ship?”

Beaming at him again, Malin nodded his head rapidly up and down, giving a little skip for emphasis. 

Everett stopped and knelt down again so he could look the boy in the face. “I'm sorry, Malin, but that's not going to happen. It wouldn't be safe. Maybe when you're grownup you can come and visit, okay?”

He wondered briefly if any of them would still be on Destiny in something like twelve or thirteen years. Maybe they would have deciphered the message in CBR. Even if they had, Everett couldn't picture Rush giving up being on the ship. There would always be new galaxies to explore and his chief scientist's life was on that ship. As for himself, he'd made his peace with not returning to Earth and staying with the ship, with Rush, before the unsuccessful attempt to dial while in a star.

Malin's face crumpled and he pulled his hand free from Everett's. He crossed his arms around his chest and started sticking his lower lip out.

“Hey there, you know big guys don't pout,” Everett said gently. “Even when they get disappointed. Well, most big guys don't. I know one who does, though. Want to know who?”

Malin looked at him, curious, his pouting put on hold. He nodded.

Everett stood up and held his hand out. After a moment, Malin grasped it and they started walking again.

“So you want to know who forgets sometimes that he's all grown up and pouts?” Everett said, remembering some interesting moments from the past few years.

Malin cocked his head to the side, and Everett was reminded of a baby bird.

“Doctor Nicholas Rush, that's who.”

Malin grinned, his own pouting forgotten. He was probably sick and tired of hearing about Rush's achievements and life, as if he was going to absorb all of that by osmosis and remember that's who he really was. It must feel good to hear that Rush had some faults. 

This kid seemed to have a pretty firm idea of his identity to Everett. He doubted Telford was going to convince him that he was once a man in his forties.

Malin tugged at his hand and he stopped. The boy brought his yo-yo out and handed it to Everett, his eyebrows arched in expectation. 

“Did General O'Neill give you that?” Everett asked on a hunch. 

The boy nodded. “I dunno, Malin. It's been a long time since I played with a yo-yo,” he muttered. But he didn't want to disappoint the kid, so he slipped the string around his finger and snapped the yo-yo down towards the sidewalk. 

Malin clapped as he made the toy whirl up and down, and Everett tried not to think about the children he would never have, would never entertain like this. Carmen and Steven and Sara. He swallowed hard, trying to let this old sorrow go. 

He handed the toy back to Malin, and ruffled his hair. The boy looked at him with those dark, perceptive eyes, and Everett made an effort to banish his somber mood. “C'mon, kiddo,” he said quietly, and held Malin's small hand in his, finding some comfort in the moment.

* * *

He bought Malin a chocolate ice cream cone, and made sure to bring a handful of napkins along with his ice tea back with them. They walked along slowly, Malin focusing on catching all the drips from his melting ice cream, as intent as he'd ever seen Rush act when checking machinery on Destiny. 

Malin would be going back to the safe house soon. What an ironic name for the place where he was being kept from his family. And Everett had concerns.

“Do you like General Telford?” Everett asked in an off hand way.

The boy shrugged, shooting a questioning look up at him. 

“Does he ever hurt you?” 

Malin stumbled a little but regained his balance. He pointed to the side of his head, where a band aid was mostly hidden by his mop of hair.

Ah, the memory device. “Does he hurt you in any other way?” Everett said. “Or does anything that makes you feel bad?”

Malin looked away, shrugging again. He was suddenly very interested in licking his ice cream cone.

Everett didn't like what he was reading in Malin's body language. He tightened his fists, and made plans to have a frank talk with his old buddy. 

He'd like to think that a man he'd called his friend wouldn't cause harm to a child, but then, Telford didn't believe the boy was a child. 

Everett couldn't see Malin any other way.

* * *

Blinking away the disorientation from changing back to his own body, Everett found himself on one knee, Rush directly in front of him. The other man seemed stressed, sitting on a crate with his eyes closed, his hand pushing against his forehead, like he could keep all the panic and guilt he was struggling with inside himself. For a split second, Everett wondered how he knew that before it registered with him exactly where he was.

“Dammit,” Everett said resignedly. “You just had to let him in here, didn't you? What's wrong?” 

“Colonel Young,” Rush said, startled and opened his eyes, letting his hand drop. He looked tense and brittle, and Everett wondered what the hell had gone on with Telford. He looked around for Varro. He was leaning against one wall of the storage room, in eyesight but not in hearing range. Everett gave him the hand signal they'd agreed on for verifying he was back; Varro nodded at him and headed for the door. 

Putting a hand on Rush's shoulder, Everett said, “What's wrong? I doubt that you're upset at me this time.”

Rush gave a fatalistic laugh that reminded Everett of the time Rush had collapsed. “General Telford and I have had a most informative chat.”

Everett let go of him and seated himself next to him. “Are you going to explain why you're looking like the rug just got yanked out from under you?”

Rush gave an expansive wave of his arm. “We've a working theory now as to why my twin came back to Earth. They're coming. The Nakai. They're coming to take Atlantis.”

The idea hit him in the gut like a blow. Cautiously, Everett asked, “How do you know that?”

“Well, Colonel, it appears that my twin has been spying on the Nakai,” Rush said, edgy. He suddenly jumped up and faced Everett. “He's learned Nakai programming.”

“I heard that from O'Neill. That team that's studying the boy thought you might have learned it first. Why would he watch them?” 

Rush gave him a disgusted look. “To learn the enemy's weakness, o' course.” He crossed his arms and said in his most disdainful tone, “Don't you learn about such things when you become a soldier-boy?”

“Settle down,” Everett said firmly. “We also learn to do threat assessments. So run through it with me.” 

Rush took a deep breath, and Everett could see him reining himself in, calming down. 

“Yes, you're right. David and I had just put this together, Colonel.” Rush said, running a hand through his hair.

 _David?_ , Everett thought. _He won't call me by my name but he's on a first name basis with Telford? Unbelievable._

“At this point, isn't this theory more of a hunch? Based on what? Your twin coming to Earth, and knowing something of the programming language that the Nakai use? He does have nightmares about them, but that might just be because they tortured him. You. Both of you,” Everett laid out.

“But it makes sense,” Rush said, looking miserable suddenly. “The Nakai could have learned about Atlantis from me and Chloe. They're fanatics, obsessed with Destiny and the Ancients. Atlantis would be such a beacon to them, an entire Ancient city that can travel through space, so much splendor and beauty and knowledge.”

“Did you tell them about Atlantis?” Everett asked, careful to not sound in any way accusatory. 

“I don't know,” Rush said, distraught and clearly upset. “I didn't think I gave away anything to them, other than language, but I can't say for sure. A lot of what happened with them I can't recall clearly, coming to and then going under again. They weren't happy with me, though. The pressure to let them into my mind was enormous, but I thought I had kept them out. But I have been to Atlantis. Even just a glimpse of what Atlantis is like could have intrigued them.”

“Has Chloe been there?”

Rush nodded. “With her father.”

“So right now we don't know if they did learn about Atlantis from the two of you,” Everett clarified. 

“I'm sure Chloe would have told me if she remembered anything about it,” Rush said. “I think Camile should hypnotize us, see if we can recall more about what happened to us.”

“Worth a shot,” Everett said. “So let's say it's true and the Nakai are coming to take Atlantis. Atlantis can defend itself, and we have ships.”

“They would send a fleet to Earth, I think. They've devoted so much time to following Destiny through galaxy after galaxy, and we've been a moving target. If they learned from us where Earth is located, they'll overwhelm our defenses. They are relentless and driven as a species.” Rush ran a hand through his hair quickly, and then did it again.

Everett said, thinking out loud, “If they learned about Atlantis, it would have been approximately five years ago. They haven't attacked us yet.”

“Or they could attack us tomorrow. As you say, it has been five years,” Rush countered, looking as wretched as Everett had ever seen him.

“On the other hand,” Everett countered, “it might be, oh, ten thousand years from now that they arrive, if they're coming. They came across Destiny at least that long ago, correct?”

“Aye, at least. The databank need to be checked much more thoroughly on that.”

“Atlantis could move to a different location, back to Pegasus or somewhere else in the Milky Way,” Everett threw out.

“Yes, yes, o' course,” Rush said. “But I guarantee the Nakai would tear through our cities and people to find where Atlantis had been hidden.”

“Can we communicate with them, reason with them?”

Shaking his head, Rush said, “Not about this, I don't think. Yes, they did bargain with us over fixing Chloe, they do have a pragmatic side, but they don't respect us any more than we would a cockroach. We are parasites to them, and need to be removed from places we have no business living, Destiny and Atlantis, if they know of it.”

“Okay. But they're probably not an immediate threat. We don't know for sure that they're aware of Atlantis, we don't know how long it would take them to come to Earth. Telford will report to Homeworld Command on this, and they'll start contingency planning.” Everett stood up. “We're not going to be a lot of help on that front. The best thing we can do is what you suggested. Seeing if Camile can uncover any hidden memories about what the Nakai learned from you and Chloe.”

Rush shuddered, but nodded.

“You're our go-to guy on the Nakai, Rush. Homeworld Command might want you to brief them on what you know about our blue skinned traveling buddies. Chloe, too. But you've had the most exposure to them.”

“Aye, I suppose they'll want us to come. And maybe you also, for tactical information.” Rush pinched the bridge of his nose, his shoulders slumping. 

“Hey, look at me.” Everett stepped closer. “Don't let this drive you up the wall, okay?” 

“It wasn't my fault,” Rush said quickly, looking away.

“I didn't say it was,” Everett said, frowning.

“Plenty of people will, though,” Rush said bleakly.

Everett laid both of his hands on Rush's shoulders, gripping him hard enough to feel bone. “I'm not going to let you get scapegoated, Rush. You or Chloe.”

“I know that you'll try.” Rush sighed then. “We're not supposed to be touching. Let go, Colonel.”

Everett let his hands drop away. “I see no reason to tell the crew about this, except for Chloe and Camile.”

“That would be too hard on Chloe,” Rush said quietly. “She'll want to let her Lieutenant Scott know and Eli, o' course.”

“I trust them to keep it to themselves, if she needs them for support. The rest of the crew can wait till we know more.” Everett sighed, thinking that he should just come all the way clean with Rush after all. “I think I need to tell you that I told both of them about you. About how you sabotaged yourself with the ninth chevron.”

Rush just stared at him, bewildered. “Why t'a fuck did ye do that?”

“I was concerned about how you reacted to what you'd remembered. If you wouldn't respond to me, we thought you might be more open to talking to them. They can be trusted to keep it to themselves,” Everett tried to assure him.

Rush just looked at him with wide eyes. “You told Eli. God, he'll want to talk about it. Thank you so much for that, Colonel Young.”

“Stay mad at me but don't take out any anger on them, Rush. They don't deserve it. And they only wanted to help. They both realized how devastating all of that was to you.”

Rush sat back down on the crate and dropped his head into his hands. “I wish the lot of you would go back into stasis and leave me in peace.”

Everett sat down next to him again. “Sure, Nicholas. All that peace and quiet.” He held up his hand, fingers apart, and touched his thumb, preparing to tick off his points. “Nobody making you stop what you're doing to eat or to sleep. Nobody making you laugh or smile. Nobody to argue with or to run races against. Nobody teasing you or startling you or making you feel bewildered because they actually like you and like doing things with you. Nobody to share your discoveries with or to work with you. Nobody to slap on the shoulder or to nudge you or hug you or sleep with you. Nobody to kiss you or comfort you.”

He dropped his hand and nudged Rush. “Nobody to remind you that you're a human being and to keep you from going insane from loneliness. Yep, being here alone is just what you need.”

“Shut it, would you?” Rush muttered, but there was no fight in his voice. He hadn't moved and Everett put his arm around him.

“On a scale of one to ten, how mad at me were you when I went to Earth?” Everett asked, and Rush didn't push away from him.

“Ten.” 

“What about now?”

“I don't know. I think my sensors are overloaded.”

Everett ran a comforting hand up and down his arm, drawing him a little closer. “You've had a rough day. Hey, I met your twin this afternoon.”

“My twin, right.” Rush snapped his fingers. “Telford is going to increase the memory device's settings, see if it brings out more from his subconscious.”

“What? Why?” Everett said, startled. “They're getting results now at the current setting. If they increase it they take a risk of damaging his mind, and if the settings are too high it can be painful.”

“I know. But we need to find out if he did come to tell us about the Nakai.” Rush sighed. “He might have brought with him a way to defeat them.”

“He's a child.”

“He's a tool.”

“How can you say that? Malin is just a little boy. He needs to be protected, not exploited. God, Rush,” Everett said, feeling sick at the thought of Malin being hurt in any way.

“He came back knowing we would have to take him apart to find out why he came. Don't be sentimental, Colonel,” Rush said, his expression becoming guarded. “He, I, would have consented to any necessary actions before descending.”

Everett shoved him away and stood up, facing him. “Just when I think you really are a human being, you go and say something like that. He may have been you at one point, but he's his own person now. He likes chocolate ice cream, and he thinks about joining the circus. He loves his family and he misses them terribly. He doesn't understand why people keep telling him he's Nicholas Rush. He knows he's Malin Tripp. He doesn't recognize what he sees in the videos from his dreams.”

Rush was shaking his head slowly. “He won't stay. He'll ascend again, once his message is totally delivered. He, I, came back as a child because a child's brain is more suited to retaining the memories needed. It's what Orlin did when he descended.”

“He's not a tool!” Everett clenched his fists.

“I'm sorry that you've gone and gotten attached to him, but he is, Colonel. His time on Earth will be short.” Rush said, in a gentler tone, “Try no to get any fonder of him, because it won't end well for you if you do.”

“Were you always this much of a heartless son-of-a-bitch?” Everett said, making himself unclench his fists. He'd made a promise, dammit. 

“Yes,” Rush said, rubbing the back of his neck. He shrugged. “Does that surprise you, Colonel? I've always said the hard things that need to be said.”

“I think you're wrong. I hope you're wrong. Malin deserves a chance to grow up happy. And normal, unlike you.” He narrowed his eyes at Rush. “Just how did you grow up, to be able to suggest a child be put through unnecessary pain?”

Rush glared at him tiredly. “For the greater good, I would agree to the risks. He is me, after all. Shouldn't it be my choice?”

“Malin is not you,” Everett gritted out, as if the force in his voice could make the callous idiot in front of him understand. “You share the same genetics, true. Some mannerisms, too, apparently were carried along when he descended. But he isn't a miniature Nicholas Rush. And whatever happened to you to warp you into being the way you are, it doesn't have to happen to him. Thank God he's got O'Neill looking out for him. He's going to be adopted by a good man, be a part of a good family. He's going to have a good life.”

“Two things, Colonel,” Rush said sharply, condescendingly. “He gave up being _ascended!_ He won't stay; he'll ascend again as soon as he's free from the obligation he made for himself.”

“And the second thing?” Everett snarled at him.

“If we're correct about the Nakai, then if we don't find out everything my twin knows, then the Nakai could take away this fairy tale happy ending you've described, if he does stay. Let Telford do what has to be done.”

“I can't believe you really feel this way, _Doctor_ Rush.”

“I don't believe in fairy tales, _Colonel_ Young. Not for my twin and not for myself.”

“His name is Malin,” Everett said, quietly, giving up on convincing Rush to what? Be a decent human being? Find some compassion in himself for the boy who had been him? Maybe that was the problem. He had a feeling Rush was harsher with himself than even other people, and if he didn't see how Malin wasn't him anymore, then why would he show the kindness to himself that he'd showed to Everett the night he'd had that fucking nightmare?

Son-of-a-bitch was so much work.

“Do you now see why it's best that we distance ourselves from each other?” Rush said, sounding maddeningly calm and compassionate.

“Oh, let me make a wild guess,” Everett said, lacing the most sarcastic tone he could through his words “So we don't bring messy personal emotions into running this ship?”

“Exactly.”

Everett walked away, feeling a mixture of anger and frustration and pity that Rush was Rush. “I'm getting there, Nicholas, I'm getting there.”

He turned at the door after he unlocked it, wincing at the soreness in his hand. Rush was still sitting on the crate, watching Everett. Their eyes met. “Come to my quarters in two hours. You and I and Camile need to meet on ship's business.”

Rush nodded, got up and started unpacking a crate. Everett turned his back on him and left, relieved to be out of his company.

 

* * *


	14. In the Days Before Resuming Gate Missions

**Colonel Young's Quarters. Destiny**

Everett was sitting at his desk, biding his time, when the sound of the door sliding open focused his attention. Rush stood in the doorway, evidently waiting for permission to enter. 

“Come in,” Everett said, looking up at him over his glasses. 

Rush walked slowly over, glancing around in the low light at the furniture and the walls. He stopped in front of the desk and curved an arm over his shoulder, rubbing at a probably knotted up muscle. He didn't make eye contact.

“I didn't erase your work yet in case you needed to copy it down,” Everett said, taking in how uncomfortable Rush looked.

“Ah, thank you,” Rush said quietly. “Camile must be on her way. She's sure to wonder about why my equations are on your walls.”

“I told her to come by in,” he looked at his watch, “thirty-five minutes. You're late. Better get started on cleaning up.”

“O' course.” Rush opened his vest pocket, finally free of the BDU jackets he worn for the past week. He pulled out a notebook, sad and limp looking, and a stub of a pencil and busied himself with copying his work. 

Everett watched him, not wanting to pull his attention away just yet. They had another problem. Yes, vacation time was over. He fully expected to deal with a dozen crises a day from now on, and he had no idea if Rush would get upset over this new complication or not.

Rush was calmer at least. He seemed subdued, too. The man was probably emotionally exhausted, and Everett was going to start keeping to his new resolution beginning right the fuck now. Nicholas Rush was not his problem, no more than any other crew member. He was not going to wonder about how the man was coping, or if he'd bothered to eat something today other than the few pieces of jerky Everett had given him.

He'd keep to the professional detachment Rush had asked for in their interactions. He wouldn't tease his chief scientist anymore, or make a point of touching him on the arm or slapping him on the back. If they ate together it would be so they could exchange information on the progress of their shared goals. 

He wouldn't tolerate Rush or anyone else being abused by vigilantes, but that concern fell under his responsibility as the mission commander. He would do his level best to keep the man here on Destiny because he was an asset. If he stopped being one, and there was a way to send him home, then he'd shove him through the gate himself.

He had every intention of following through with his goal of understanding the man better, and he planned to ask Chloe to run the focus group on Rush. He could trust her to be fair and not let things slide into a witch hunt. Her degree in the social sciences field was more apt for that sort of work, anyway. 

He didn't care if Rush found out about it or not. Rush was not alone on this ship, no matter how much he wished he was by himself. In Everett's professional judgment, the man lacked leadership and teamwork skills. He was by nature a maverick, and while Everett was under no illusions that he could change Rush's essential nature, he did believe Rush could learn to work much better with others, at least on a professional level. What he did on his own time was not something Everett cared about, not any more.

His thoughts slowed, caught by the notion of time. This wasn't the first time Rush had been late to a meeting or not showed up at all. Probably that was deliberate a good deal of the time, but he hadn't been as bad on Icarus as he was on Destiny. Back at the base, Everett had never really noticed him being any later than anyone else, not counting all the meals he'd missed. 

Here though, seeing Rush slip into the gate room or the mess or Everett's quarters later, sometimes much later, than everyone else was more common than him being there on time. Everett pictured him in his usual pose, leaning against a back wall, always on the edge, the periphery of the group. 

What if it wasn't always on purpose?

He shook his head at himself. Rush was defiant with authority down to his very bones. Not coming when he was expected was just his way of showing that defiance.

Wasn't it?

He watched how intently Rush was working. Everett might do a strip tease and Rush probably wouldn't notice. 

After Rush finally replaced the notebook in his vest pocket, Everett asked him casually, “How long do you think you've been in my quarters?”

“What?” Rush looked at him, baffled. 

“It's a simple question, I just need a simple answer.” Rush looked away from him again. Everett asked, “How many minutes have you been here? Think about your answer carefully, don't just guess.” 

Rush let out a disgruntled sound and gave Everett an exhausted look. “You're daft, you know.”

Everett didn't roll his eyes, but it was a near miss. “That's a pretty personal remark for someone who wanted us to be emotionally distant with each other. I've decided you're right about that, by the way. But please answer my question.”

Rush pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Ten minutes.”

“Since you walked in the door?”

“Aye. Can I use your washing cloth, Colonel, to clean the walls?”

“Go ahead.” Everett looked at his watch and noted the time.

Rush shot him another puzzled look and disappeared into the bathroom, emerging with a cloth that he'd dampened with cleaning gel. 

Everett looked around his quarters for any other evidence that Rush had lived with him for the last week. Rush's Ipod was in his desk drawer, the extra bedding brought out of Rush's room put into Everett's chest of drawers. He'd remade the bed. Rush's laptop was sitting on top of the coffee table, but Camile would assume he'd brought it with him.

Eli had radioed him an hour ago and let him know that he'd found Rush's Ipod and the blanket and cups in the observation room. 

“I don't want to know what you guys were doing in there, do I?” Eli had said, sounding vaguely perturbed. 

“Nothing happened, Eli. The bond is dormant.” Everett had massaged his forehead, a headache beginning to form. 

“Okay, sure. If you say so,” Eli said dubiously. “It's just, um, one blanket, really? And mood music? I saw the playlist. That was like, make-out music for geeks.”

Everett cut him off. “Thank you, Eli. Young out.” He'd retrieved the evidence of their date shortly afterwards.

He banished those earlier memories and focused on the here and now. Rush was working quickly and efficiently on wiping the walls down. When he'd finished and returned the cloth to the bathroom, Everett pointed to the couch area.

“Sit down. I have something to bring up before Camile arrives.”

“What?” Rush said suspiciously, as he perched on one couch and Everett took the one opposite him.

“Where did you leave your glasses last night?” Everett asked calmly.

Rush glanced towards the bed. “On that wee table over there. Where are they, then?”

Everett pulled Rush's badly fixed glasses out of his jacket breast pocket and handed them to the other man.

Rush slid them on and opened his computer bag, pulled out his laptop. “Thank you, Colonel.”

“Here's the problem.” Rush glanced at him, his dark eyes wary. “I didn't put your glasses in my jacket pocket. I found them and my own in there after I switched back with Telford.”

He could tell the second the implication hit Rush. “Ah. Telford was in your quarters. He saw my work on the walls.”

Everett nodded. “And the unmade bed, which it was pretty evident that I didn't sleep in there by myself, and our glasses on the table.”

“You're concerned?”

“He's going to assume we weren't just sleeping in that bed,” Everett said sourly.

Rush shrugged. “I'm not one of your soldiers, so the rule about not sleeping with your subordinates doesn't apply. What's the rule now about men sleeping with men, if you're in the service? I haven't paid that much attention.”

“Don't ask, Don't tell was repealed the year we went into stasis, according to the info dump I read this afternoon. If your local laws allow it, you can marry your partner.” And about time, Everett thought. He'd never believed that who you were attracted to made you unfit to be in the service.

“So Telford can't accuse you of anything, can he?” Rush sighed tiredly. “He might say something rude to me, but I don't give a fuck. It's no any of his business, anyway.”

Everett rubbed his forehead, feeling tension start to rebuild. “The angle I think he might bring up is if he finds out the full effect the stasis pod had on us. He could use the change in our relationship as evidence that I was negatively impacted by the bond and cast doubts on my ability to command.”

“Because sleeping with me would be such a colossally bad decision, I suppose.” Rush gave him a cynical small grin. “Well, he'd be hard pressed to find any real proof in the future. Don't worry about it, Colonel.”

He couldn't help it. He laughed at Rush's stock in trade phrase. 

“You are daft,” Rush grumbled, and turned his attention back to his laptop.

Everett had something else to clarify with Rush, although he was fairly certain he already knew the man's preferences. “Do you want to be with me when I update TJ about the pod?”

“Why does she have to know anything?” Rush scowled. “We've got the bloody bond under control.”

“Rush. She has to know.”

“You can tell her by yourself,” Rush muttered.

“She's going to want to check you out, you know,” Everett said firmly.

Rush let out an aggravated sound. 

Everett raised his brows.“Yeah, I'm guessing that complaining about it won't get you out of a pretty thorough physical. Also, I'm telling her about the beatings you've had.”

Rush waved a dismissive hand towards him. Everett let it go, but he'd send someone, probably Greer, to escort the stubborn SOB to the infirmary if he wouldn't go on his own. 

Before today, he'd have done it himself, but it would be better to farm out that chore. 

He spread out his own notes on the coffee table as Rush powered up his laptop. He looked at Rush's wrists, but he wasn't wearing a watch. 

He used to have one, didn't he? Everett thought hard about that until an unwanted memory rose up to mock him. Rush had set an alarm on his wrist watch so they wouldn't over stay their time on the desert planet where the Nakai scout ship had been found. 

“What happened to your wrist watch?” Everett asked abruptly.

“What?” Rush glanced up at him, then shrugged. “I lost it.”

“How?” Everett asked.

Rush scrubbed his hands over his face. “Bloody hell, I don't know what you're on about, but I know that tone of voice. The Nakai took my watch, all right? And why do you care if I have one or no?”

Everett ignored his question. “By the way, you flunked my test. The correct answer was twenty-three minutes, not ten. I think you've got no sense of time, and without a watch you lose track of when and where you're supposed to be. I know that's not the whole story, but I suspect you aren't always trying to be late.”

Rush shrugged. 

“Here.” Everett slipped his own watch off and handed it to Rush, who looked at it blankly and then tried to give it back. 

“What are ye doing, Colonel? I don't want your watch.” Rush's forehead had wrinkled with confusion, giving Everett a preview of what Rush might look like decades from now.

He casually pointed a finger at the other man. “Unlike you, I have an excellent sense of time. And you're going to keep my watch until we can find a replacement for yours. This is not negotiable, Rush.”

Rush looked at him searchingly, dark eyes wary again.

Everett was fairly certain he knew what Rush was thinking. “No, I'm not being nice to you. I'm assessing the efficiency of a crew member and fixing a problem. And you'd better start showing up to meetings mostly on time from now on.”

Rush stared at the watch. “Are you sure about this, Colonel?”

“I would do the same for Camile, if she had your poor sense of time.”

“Okay. Um, thanks.” He buckled the watch around his wrist. “Before Camile walks in that door, I want to say something.”

He looked away, and then down at his hands. “I know you didn't make me talk to you last night. I don't want to say anything about it now or ever, but you were right. I did have free will.”

“Thanks for that. And I'm taking your advice,” Everett said, making sure he sounded impersonal. “We'll keep things professional, not personal.” 

“Aye. That'd be best,” Rush said quietly, not meeting Everett's eyes.

And, Everett thought, we're not going to bring up the boy who once was you. Because we have no middle ground when it comes to Malin.

* * * 

**Colonel Young's Quarters. Destiny**

“Chloe, if at any time you want to stop, to take a break, all you have to do is say so,” Camile said, and this was how TJ liked her best, when she wasn't trying to play hardball with the Colonel, or advance the IOA's agenda in a power grab. This was the real Camile, she'd come to realize, tough, but compassionate.

TJ knew Camile Wray well enough by now to know that she hadn't liked what she'd been ordered to do by the IOA. Not since the mutiny. TJ could understand that, and also understand why Camile sometimes challenged the Colonel. She cared very much about the rights of the civilians on board this ship. 

Camile been so kind to her after Carmen's death. The numbness that had invaded every cell of TJ's body after losing the baby had formed a barrier between her and the world, and Camile's concern for her had not been able to get past those shields. Not then. But she remembered how Camile had tried to help her, had stayed with her when she could have found a safe haven from the Alliance soldiers.

She remembered a hand gripping her own as she struggled back to consciousness, and tears streaking down Camile's face; she'd looked so exhausted and scared and grieving for TJ's loss and, she'd come to realize, her own loss because Carmen had been the crew's baby as well. 

TJ blinked hard against the rising wetness in her eyes. She would not allow herself to cry, not now. Someday, she told herself, someday when enough time had gone by to blunt the knife in the gut feeling she had now when she put a hand on her flat belly, she would immerse herself in grief, scream out the pain she always carried with her, and rail at the unfairness of the universe.

But not today. 

She wasn't sure what had her in this sort of mood. Maybe it was coming out of stasis and knowing three years had passed by. She should have been happy. They'd made it across the void without losing anyone. They were as safe as they ever were. Varro had been there to welcome her back, and Eli and Matthew and Chloe. The rest of the science team were unfrozen, hugs and slaps on the back and handshakes exchanged. The Colonel had come by the impromptu party held in the mess, and had given her that tired smile of his. Once she would have drawn him away, banished that expression with kisses and sex in locked back rooms, surrounded by equipment or stores. On Icarus, it had always been too risky to use his quarters and she'd shared a room. They'd gone too far in different directions to have that kind of relationship any more. But sometimes she'd look at him and feel an echo of that aching, twisted passion they'd shared for a short time.

She'd taken Varro to her quarters. She'd told that bastard Simeon that she liked the rough stuff, and she hadn't been lying. But Varro somehow knew what she needed last evening and instead made love to her gently, kissing her fingers, her breasts, and holding her as she drifted off to sleep. 

The Colonel had kept Rush's and Telford's theory to himself that night, allowing those awake to have one almost carefree night. He'd asked her, Chloe, and Camile to meet with him after breakfast the next morning in his quarters, and had explained about Rush's twin, and the concern that the Nakai were headed towards Earth.

And now, for the greater good, they were going to return Chloe to the hell she'd experienced on that Nakai ship.

Camile was talking reassuringly to Chloe, explaining what hypnosis was, that she would guide Chloe through examining her memories, that Chloe could not be compelled to do or say anything against her will.

“If anything I can remember will help Homeworld Command fight off the Nakai, then I should do it,” Chloe said.

 _Should do it_ Should. Chloe's word choice betrayed her uncertainty about what the Colonel and Rush had asked her to do. TJ moved closer, abandoning the margin of safe distance she'd been keeping. She sat down on Chloe's other side and noted how her eyes were dilated, the faster than normal pace of her breathing. “May I,” she asked as she quietly slid her hand over Chloe's. 

“Um, okay.” Chloe's voice sounded deliberately calm, masking the fear her body language was broadcasting to TJ.

She turned Chloe's hand over and placed two fingers on her pulse point. 

“Oh, boy,” Chloe said, her face pale. “TJ?”

“It's just routine, Chloe. Just for the record,” TJ said. “Just breath slowly and deeply. You've got this.” She looked at her watch, timing the heartbeats of her friend who'd faced torture and genetic experimentation at the hands of her kidnappers.

“It's just memories, I know. I went back to their ship and I didn't know if I would ever see Matt again. I did that and I can do this, you guys,” Chloe said, sounding determined despite what her pulse rate was proving to TJ. One hundred and forty beats per minutes; that was way, way too high for sitting down. 

TJ said soothingly. “I can give you something to help you relax a little.”

“No,” Chloe said, “I'll be all right. Just give me a minute or two.”

“Sure,” TJ said. “How this goes is entirely up to you. Let's make things a little more comfortable, though. Want the Colonel's blanket?”

Chloe nodded and Camile took it off the bed and draped it around Chloe. 

“Lights dimmed or bright?” Camile asked. 

“Dim. The lights were so bright when they... when they were doing things to me.”

“Water?” TJ asked.

“No, but when this is over can you prescribe me some of Brody's moonshine?” Chloe said, and then gave them a grin.

It looked forced and awkward and TJ loved her for trying to joke about this.

“Sure,” TJ said. “We'll have a girls night out, right, Camile? We'll commandeer Brody's bar and booze. We'll grab Lisa and Vanessa. Leanne, too. And Inman. She's pretty funny after she's been sampling that sort of gin she makes.”

She held out her hand to Chloe and she took it. “We'll get drunk and sing old hit songs and dance and watch chick flicks. I heard that Lisa has some good ones. 13 Going on 30, for one, and Mean Girls.”

“Oh my God, I laughed so hard at Mean Girls.” Chloe smiled tremulously at her. 

“I didn't know Lisa Park liked that sort of humor,” Camile said.

“Please,” Chloe snorted. “She laughs at the South Park episodes Eli's got on his phone as much as Volker and Brody do. In fact, the only member of the science team who doesn't crack up at them is Doctor Rush.”

TJ arched her eyebrows. “Can't you just picture the look on his face if he had to watch one?”

“Eli's tried to explain the absolute genius of that show a few times but all Doctor Rush does is look at him and the rest of us like we're insane and say...” She pulled what TJ guessed was supposed to be a Rush expression, “You lot are daft.” She said it in a mangled version of Rush's accent and TJ chuckled.

Chloe's expression sobered and she tightened her hold on TJ's hand. “He's going to do this, too, isn't he?”

“Yes, he is,” TJ said.

“God, they had him for so much longer than me,” Chloe said, horror in her voice.

“He's strong, Chloe. He'll be okay,” Camile said soothingly.

“He saved me. I hated him once, because of daddy, and now he's like family to me.” She looked at Camile and then at TJ. TJ nodded at her in understanding.

“I think a lot of people on this ship have discovered family with each other,” Camile said softly. 

Chloe let out a long sigh. “I know. I feel like I understand what it means to have sisters now. And brothers. And one slightly crazy uncle.” She nodded her head, as if coming to a decision. “Okay, let's do this. If my crazy Uncle Nick managed to get us both off that Nakai ship, then I can manage to do this hypnosis thing. Just tell me what to do, okay?”

* * *

Chloe started awake, heart hammering, her body damp and shivering, This was the second time tonight that her nightmares had woken her and she sat up in bed and watched the blue light traveling its path around and around on the curved wall of her room. The last two nights since she'd begun hypnosis had been terrible.

Beside her Matthew was deeply asleep. She was thankful that the screams that had torn her throat raw in her dream hadn't escaped to wake him up. He would hold her, if she shook him awake and told him about the dream. He would distract her if she wanted that. He would listen to her talk about her fears if she preferred that instead. If she stroked her hand down his chest and belly and groin he would make love to her, his warm weight replacing the feel of the cold water of the tank the Nakai had imprisoned her in. 

He would do anything for her; and it was enough, just knowing that. She didn't want to stay in bed and stare at the ceiling, so she would resume an old habit and walk the halls until she felt calm enough to wander into the mess for a cup of tea. She would let Matthew sleep. Kissing him softly on his temple, she slid out of the warm bed into the cool air and shuddered. With slightly shaking hands she wiped a damp cloth down her body, removing sweat and tears, and dressed. She moved silently out the door, feeling insubstantial, a specter haunting the ship. A changeling returned from the other side with alien skills in her head.

She remembered everything Camile had brought out of the depths of her mind; she had hoped to never revisit any of those memories again. Their alien eyes and the sounds of chittering and throaty gurgles that coalesced into language when her memories replayed. _Map the specimen’s neural network. Force the large orifice on the head open and insert the assessment tool._ The feel of their cold blue hands upon her body, restraining her, taking away her clothes. Pain when they examined her, puncturing her skin, which was nothing compared to the agony of ripping through her mind, taking what they wanted.

Did she tell them about Atlantis? She didn't know. The excruciating pain masked what they stole from her, mostly. She remembered that they wanted to know about Destiny, but her knowledge of ships systems was practically nonexistent at the time. It didn't take long for them to discard her and leave her alone in her watery prison. 

She shivered again and again and rubbed her arms as she walked down corridors leading to the bridge, to crew quarters, to the observation deck, to the apple core, to the neural interface chair. 

Finally she turned towards the mess. After hearing about the fruitless attempts to hypnotize Rush, she had a feeling she wouldn't be alone there.

* * *

**The Mess. Destiny.**

Rush was sitting at at a table by the wall, his hands cupped around a metal mug. He glanced up as she approached him and a look of regret and understanding crossed his face. She went to the hot water dispenser and filled one of the homemade tea balls with crushed leaves and seeds from a container labeled 'Tea Wannabe.' Eli had done that, named each batch of dried plants something that tried to be amusing. 

Usually it would make her smile. Maybe tomorrow it would. She dropped the tea ball into a mug that matched Rush's and filled it to the brim with hot, hot water. 

They never talked very much when they met like this. There was no need. He knew what filled her nightmares and she understood how the cold air and water on the Nakai ship settled back into his bones again after he dreamed about what they had done to him.

She sat across from him and felt comforted. It was a primal reaction, born when he had broken the tank she'd been kept in, and she'd seen him, scared and determined and so human. His touch on her face had been gentle, soothing. Human touch. Human eyes. She'd wanted to sob from the joy of feeling another human being again. He'd pulled her from the floor and just like that, she'd imprinted on him like a newborn, and had followed him back to freedom. 

Something of the same reaction must have happened to him. She didn't know why. But they had immediately formed this connection, this trust, and they had never lost it. 

She was so grateful to him, although he never let her express it. He'd come to find her, when he could have left her to the Nakai. He'd increased the risk of being captured by detouring to where she'd been kept, and she'd been more of a liability than an asset as they'd ducked the groups of Nakai walking the halls, Rush in front of her holding a pipe as his makeshift weapon.

He cared about her. She'd heard gossip that he must want to take her to bed, that was why he'd saved her. But he didn't. She knew when a man or a woman took a sexual interest in her or developed a crush. Doctor Rush never looked at her that way. He wasn't parental, either. 

He didn't tease her like an older brother might. And they were much closer than a mentor and a student. She guessed Colonel Young had been right when he'd called Doctor Rush the uncle of their little shipboard family. 

“Camile is going to Earth tomorrow to meet with the IOA,” he said softly.

“Did you ever...?” She let the words trail off but from his expression he knew what she was referring to.

“No.” He shrugged. “She wasn't able to hypnotize me. We'll try again when she comes back.”

She drew her mug a little closer and absently checked the color of the tea. “TJ told me she could give me something to help me relax. Did you try it?” 

“It looks like that's the next step,” he said, sounding exhausted. 

“I watched the kino recording of my sessions.” It had been weird, seeing herself hypnotized. 

He took a small sip of tea and closed his eyes when he swallowed it. They had so few luxuries on board that even a cup of tea was cherished. “Was that useful? To see yourself like that?” 

She shook her head no and fished the tea ball out of her own mug, laying it on the table top.

“I watched yours, too,” he said. “I thought maybe it would help me to remember something new.”

“Did it?” she lifted the mug to her lips, the metal warming her hands.

“Not really.” He looked at her intently, his eyes meeting hers and holding her gaze. “But you weren't just curious, were you, lass? You were compelled to leave the safety of your room to come to them. But I don't think I was ever compelled like that. So, do they all have that talent, or is it specialized to just some of them? What in their evolution would have pointed them to develop in that direction? Their ancestors must have called their prey to them telepathically, I suppose.” 

Prey. That's what they were to the Nakai. She shuddered. “We aren't safe from them, are we? Even in this new galaxy. They kept finding Destiny in the past.”

“They can't track us now. We got rid of all the transmitters on the ship.” His smile was twisted and sardonic, as he briefly touched his chest. 

He hadn't said they were safe though. She felt cold, thought she felt the heavy weight of the rubbery suit they'd dressed her in once again. 

“Chloe,” he said softly. “You're alright, lass.” She took a deep breath and nodded, keeping her eyes on him.

He sipped his tea and held the mug in his hands afterwards, like he was reluctant to part from its warmth. “They have a communication stone. They understand now how it works, since they used it to make Lieutenant James sabotage the ship.”

“Can they find us that way again?” 

“Perhaps,” he said soberly. “We must be very careful about how the stones are used. If the Nakai come to Earth, they might be able to hijack a stone once they're in range and find out our location from Homeworld Command. We don't know enough about how the stones work, unfortunately, to know how to totally protect ourselves. Colonel Young asked a good question about all of that. He wondered if they could track us through the stone. I'm fair sure we couldn't do it, not with our level of understanding of quantum entanglement, but perhaps their understanding is more advanced.” 

“Maybe the scientists on Earth could look into it,” she said and Rush nodded.

“Aye, McKay and Zelenka and Carter and Lee, perhaps they could research it. I'll ask the Colonel to pass that suggestion along to Homeworld Command.”

They fell into their usual comfortable silence and Chloe felt herself relaxing.

“Matt and I married on Novus,” she said after a time, causing Rush to arch his eyebrows. “And when he was delirious he dreamed of our wedding. You married us, as a matter of fact.” 

“Did I now?” He looked a little pleased at the notion.

“He said you did. I love him, Doctor Rush.”

He smiled gently. “I know, lass. I suspect everybody on Destiny knows that.”

“He hasn't asked me to marry him.” Chloe took another sip of tea, feeling her cheeks heat up.

“Well, then, why don't you ask him?” Rush said matter-of-factly.

She laughed at that, and he gave her a baffled look. “That's not very traditional,” she said.

He shrugged. “Bugger tradition. My wife asked me.”

“And you said yes.”

He rolled his eyes. “I'm no an idiot. O' course I said yes.”

“Matthew isn't an idiot,” she blurted out.

“Then he'll say yes, too,” Rush said, giving her a look that seemed to say she would be the idiot if she didn't ask Matt to marry her.

She laughed again and felt the nightmare's hold on her loosening and wafting away. They drank their tea, and she watched his eyes start to droop in the quiet. In a few hours the breakfast shift would start. She decided to go back to her quarters and wrap herself around Matthew. She'd think about taking Doctor Rush's advice.

When she got up, Doctor Rush caught her eye.

“Chloe, if Camile manages to put me under, then don't watch the kino recording. Promise me that, lass.”

“But it might jog my memory,” she protested, but without any heat. It wouldn't be something she wanted to do, but something she had to do.

“I don't want you to hear what happened,” he said, looking concerned. “It might make your troubles worse.”

She walked over to his side of the table and took his hand. “I'll be okay. I have Matt, and I have you and Eli and TJ and Camile and Colonel Young and Ronald. The science team. If there's the slightest chance it will help, then I'll do it.” She'd do it for her father; in a way it would honor his own sacrifice.

She pulled Doctor Rush up. “Walk me to my quarters?”

He nodded. “And then you'll get some sleep?” she prodded. 

Giving her a one shouldered shrug, he said, “Don't worry about me.” It wasn't as dismissive as he probably wanted it to sound. Ever since she'd come out of stasis and had finally tracked him down, he'd been off kilter. Maybe it was because of what they suspected about the Nakai, but she didn't think so. He seemed distracted, and she'd noticed how often he'd glanced at Colonel Young when the Colonel had come to the bridge while Rush had shown her his solution to the FTL calculations. Something was up between them, but it didn't look like the old hostility. She'd caught the Colonel staring at Rush a few times, with this stoic or disappointed look on his face, but he hadn't accused him of anything. 

“Don't worry about you because you're fine?” Chloe asked wryly.

Rush nodded, and she sighed and drew him into a slow careful hug. He let her, and she felt him relax into it and wrap his arms around her in return. Odd. The few times she'd done that before he'd reluctantly allowed it, but he'd never responded back like that. 

“Yeah,” she said, “I'm fine, too.” 

* * * 

**The Infirmary. Destiny.**

 

“TJ?” Everett braced himself. He'd put this off long enough. 

“Colonel? Did you need me?” TJ looked up from where she was reading, the monitor's glow lighting her face. She started to rise and Everett put out a hand.

“Don't get up. I just need to inform you of something that happened to Rush and me in stasis. Just as a precaution, in case there's some sort of medical fallout. But I'm all right, and so is Rush.” 

She got up anyway and gestured for him to follow her. “I'll be giving everyone a physical, just a wellness check, really. We don't know much about the effects of stasis on a human body. I was just looking through the translated section of the data base on that subject, as a matter of fact.”

“Get with Eli. He's been on this since before Rush and I went into stasis. In, uh, one pod. He probably can steer you towards what you need to know.”

“You shared a pod? Why?”

“When it was down to me, Eli, and Rush, we discovered only two of the pods were working. Eli volunteered to stay out and fix the last one, but he couldn't. What he did discover was that two people could share a pod, if they were somewhat compatible. I made the decision that it would be Rush and me. To share.” He flashed back to how Rush had run his hands through Everett's hair, how he'd kissed him with abandon, letting some well of passion that Everett hadn't guessed Rush had free. 

He should have known, though. Rush's drive and determination to understand Destiny, the mission he'd uncovered, it wasn't cold scientific interest that powered him. It was passion, pure and simple. He'd hidden it under a cranky facade, had pulled away from most of the crew, maybe, so they wouldn't see it. But sometimes it had shone through. When he'd explain Destiny's mission to other crew members, for example. His insistence on examining alien ships. Uploading his mind to the ship so he could be with Doctor Perry, despite the danger; he'd run through the corridors to get to the chair to be with her. 

Everett wondered what else Rush was passionate about that he was keeping locked down. And Christ, he was doing it again. Thinking about Rush in such a personal way. He had to stop this. The goal as mission commander, his professional duty, was to integrate Rush with the crew a damn sight better than where they were now. And that was all. 

The man might be hugely interesting, but he also was a callous son-of-a-bitch, willing to consign a child to suffering. Be damned to the greater good, anyway. They could find a better way to protect the Earth from spacefaring enemies than trying to pull incoherent and fragmented memories out of a child's subconscious. 

“Sir?” TJ laid a hand on his arm, and he wondered if she'd been trying to get his attention. “I'll do your physical now, and you can tell me what happened.”

She pointed to a gurney. “Take off your jacket and have a seat.” She grabbed her stethoscope and blood pressure cuff. “Let's just get your vitals to start with.”

He complied, letting his feet dangle as he sat quietly. She finished up the routine things, then stepped back and eyed him carefully, producing a penlight out of a pocket and shining it in his eyes. He felt a surge of nostalgia for Doctor Frasier, back at the SGC. She'd been a menace with that thing. TJ pinched up the skin on the back of his hand and watched it subside. 

She smiled reassuringly at him. “You look rested and you're not dehydrated. Your blood pressure is good, heart and lungs sound normal.” 

“Yeah, this past week was like a vacation, even though it was freezing. I actually caught up on my sleep, and got in some running,”

“It must have been quiet.” She eyed him again, still smiling. “You wouldn't like it for too long, but not having everybody clamoring for your attention must have been a nice change.” 

He took a deep breath. This was awkward, talking to her about his sexual desires for someone else. He knew they weren't good for each other, and yet, sometimes when he'd seen her with Varro he'd felt so jealous and so depressed. But some fuckups couldn't be fixed. He wasn't sure how his other self had managed it on Novus. Different timing, different experiences, he supposed.

His expression must have clued her, because her attitude and body language turned careful. Professional. “So what did happen that has you concerned?”

She kept that professional expression through most of what he explained, but it cracked into astonishment when he explained about the intense desire to have sex with each other. She smothered it fast, though. After he'd explained about what Rush called the bond and how they circumvented it, she gave him a rueful look. 

“He really is clever, you know, coming up with that. I gather it worked?” 

He made a so-so motion with his hand. “It took some effort on our part, but yeah. We can be in the same room now without wanting to jump each other. Rush says the bond is dormant. But I've shared a couple of his dreams. It was like I was him, in a memory, but then I could step back and be like an observer. He hasn't experienced any of my dreams, though. He didn't know about any of it till I told him.”

“Okay. I'll want to do a full physical and blood work, and an EEG.” She pulled a handmade hospital gown from a shelf and handed it to him. It looked like it had once been a sheet. “Get undressed and lie down on the gurney. I'll get some things ready. Where's Doctor Rush, do you know? I need to look him over too.”

“He's having a meeting with the science team, before Eli and Camile use the stones. Also, he became hypothermic earlier in the week. Nothing to do with the stasis pod, Telford pulled him wet out of the shower and the cold got to him fast.” He turned over the gown in his hands. “I couldn't help but notice how thin he is. Is he underweight?”

“He is, but not everything boils down to numbers on a chart. I think he's just built wiry and his metabolism is high. Right now, he's healthy enough even though he has lost weight. He shouldn't skip as many meals as he does, though. Maybe you can get that through his head. I haven't had much success.” TJ busied herself with turning on the Ancient monitor above the gurney.

“The other thing is that I found out he's been beaten up a handful of times by unknown members of the crew.” Everett laid the gown down and clenched the side of the gurney. Vigilantes terrorizing crew members, even Rush, was anathema to him. 

“Oh,” TJ said, but she didn't sound surprised. 

“Yeah,” he grunted in exasperation. “Not really a shocker, is it? He kept it to himself, but I saw the bruises on him before we went into the pod and got him to spill about it. He's not going to say anything if it happens again. I told him I'd check him myself, but it would be better if you got him down here on a weekly basis or so and had a look, in case he's hurt worse than bruising.”

She side-eyed him. “You know how he is about stepping foot in here. People are going to notice if I have to keep tracking him down.”

He frowned. “Now that the bond is dormant, Rush and I are putting some distance between us. Me yanking up his shirts to check for bruises isn't going to help that.”

“I suppose not.” A doubtful expression crossed her face. “I'll try, sir. But if he becomes difficult, I'm referring him back to you.” She gave him a pointed look.

“Yeah. Fair enough, Lieutenant.”

She gave him a sympathetic glance and moved away, pulling the curtain around the gurney. He stepped down and methodically began undressing. He'd ask her to redact the report, only document for official purposes the dream sharing, as O'Neill had suggested. He couldn't order her to do it, but he was fairly sure she would. They were all on this boat together, and they looked out for each other, even against Homeworld Command. 

* * *

“Colonel? What are you doing?” TJ peered over his shoulder at the console. She'd cleared him to leave so he could understand the puzzled tone in her voice. Everett turned down the volume on the console, and Rush's voice faded away. He'd been outlining a plan to fix the damaged power conduits, a souvenir of their last battle with the Machine ships.

“Eli always sets up a kino to record the science team meetings. I'm just tapping into it in real time, to see if they're about done. I want to talk to them without Rush being there, so I thought it would be a good time for you to get him down here.” Everett gave a vague wave taking in the infirmary.

“Can I ask why?” TJ sounded a little wary. He turned around and she stepped back, increasing the space between them. 

He stilled, not wanting to crowd her. “There's changes that I'd like to see happen. I plan on going over them all with my officers and the senior science staff, but for now I'd like to get the science team's input on Rush. Yours, too, TJ.”

“Our input? Why sir?” TJ said cautiously.

“He's essential to this mission, and I want to see improvement in how the crew gets along with him, and vice versa.” He fell silent, thinking. Finally, he said, “I want to know how to help him. He's been difficult for me to get a handle on ever since I met him, and we've both done things to make things worse. That's not good for him, me, or the crew. I need advice, TJ. Got any for me?”

“May I speak off the record, sir?” TJ crossed her arms and considered him.

“Sure. You can level with me.” He raised his eyebrows. “I can guess that you're concerned that it's because of the bond we skirted around that I want to do this, but it's not. I've been trying to figure Rush out for a long time. Every time I think he's being cooperative, he pulls some stunt. Every time I've written him off as a heartless, manipulative bastard, he does something that shows he cares about people on this ship.”

“Everett, I know you've been obsessed about him before. And now, with sexual attraction thrown on top of that? Be careful, okay? It's not healthy for you to get so fixated on him.”

“I hear you, Tamara. I'll be careful.” 

She looked at him and waited, looking indecisive.

“What is it?” He wanted to pull her closer, and she must have seen that on his face because she stepped back out of his reach with the tiniest shake of her head. “We're still off the record, Tamara. This is just you and me now.” He studied her, their breathing marking the passing of time. After long moments he said gently, “I think maybe you've got something to say to me, maybe something you've wanted to say for a long time.”

She nodded, her eyes starting to tear up. “I didn't want to say anything before we went into stasis. You had enough on your mind, and if we didn't make it, then what would have been the point?”

“Okay. I can see that. But I'm here now.” He waited and braced himself, feet well apart, knees bending slightly to absorb a blow.

“Yeah.” She took a deep breath. “You and me, we've been through a lot, and sometimes I wish things had gone differently.”

He nodded. “Me, too.”

Slowly, she said, “Sometimes I wish with all my heart that you'd chosen me over Emily. That our baby had lived or that we'd never conceived her at all. That we followed regulations and never started a relationship. But it is what it is, and despite what our counterparts did on Novus. I don't see us rekindling what we had.”

“No. Things are different.” He'd always loved her blue eyes, as pretty as a summer day, and now they were brimming with tears. 

“The other Tamara, the other Everett, they learned to love each other again, to let go of the damage they did to each other,” she said, with just a hint of wistfulness.

Everett flashed to some of the pictures and video footage from Novus. They'd been bitter-sweet to watch. “Are you asking if we can do the same, Tamara?”

“I'm not. We're done, Everett.” The tears made wet trails down her face and she stepped close to him and kissed him, soft and gentle. “I'll always care about you, because of Carmen, and because you're a good man. I've wanted to say that to you for such a long time, and there never seemed to be the right moment.”

“I'm sorry, TJ. For everything,” he said, choking out the words, his voice rough with sorrow for her and for what had died stillborn between them, just like their daughter had.

She stepped back and wiped her face, straightening up. “I know you are. Let it go, okay? I know you care about me. I don't know what exactly we are now, there just doesn't seem to be the right word for us, but Everett, I've got your back, and I know you've got mine.”

He caught her hand. “If you ever need me to do anything for you, I'm there.”

She tightened her fingers around his own for a time, and then pulled away. He let her go.“Just take care of yourself, Everett,” she said. “Please. Talk to me, to Matt, if things go dark for you again.” 

He was touched. “I will. Don't worry about it, TJ.”

She laughed, a thin and watery sound, but kept a half smile on her face afterwards. “You _have_ been spending time with Doctor Rush. You've borrowed his phrase. If I've heard, 'Don't worry about it, Lieutenant Johansen,' once, I've heard it a hundred times.”

“It's the opposite of reassuring to me,” he said, fighting down a grin and losing the battle. Rush would be miffed if he could hear them.

“I take a much closer look at what's wrong with him when he says that, especially if he's sidling towards the door,” TJ said, a rueful expression on her face. “He isn't the easiest patient I've ever had. At least Greer learned his lesson about taking time to heal. Doctor Rush, not so much.”

“This crew is lucky to have you with us, TJ.”

She smiled a real smile. “I'm getting the hang of the Ancient medical gear. And being a doctor, I guess.” She looked at him speculatively. “You know, as chief medical officer, I have some suggestions for my department.”

“Let's hear them.”

“Everyone on the ship learn basic first aid, and another group learn paramedic skills,” she said promptly. He suspected that she'd had these suggestions ready for quite a while. “Everyone's been great about pitching in when we have medical emergencies, but I'd like to have a dedicated team that won't have other duties to help in the infirmary when we have casualties.” 

“Make me a list.” Camile would almost certainly be on it, although Rush had said he thought she should be trained for bridge duty. In a battle, though, he wanted his A-team at the helm, so there shouldn't be a conflict.

“Also, I'd like to have a team of herbalists working with me on understanding the plants we harvest for medicinals and including those people on every foraging mission.” She looked thoughtful. “I'd like to grow more plants, but we would need to fix hydropondics to start with and maybe convert other areas into medicinal gardens.” 

He nodded. “You and Camile come up with your potential herbalists and we'll toss the problem of growing spaces to the science team. Brody and Rush should be able to come up with what you need.”

“I'll get with Camile when she returns from Earth.” 

“Anything else, TJ?”

She gave him a concerned look. “I don't know about this thing you had or have for Nicholas Rush. And it's got to have thrown him for a loop. I'd heard from Dr. Sims that Rush had been married and his wife had died maybe a year before the Icarus base opened. Dr. Sims tried to talk to him about how he was doing with losing her, but Doctor Rush just rebuffed him. Despite the fact that Rush's body language is pretty expressive, I suspect he's still closed down over her death.”

“Yeah.” Everett remembered those heartbreaking sobs Rush had made in his sleep. Maybe they'd been for his wife.

“Gossip on this ship travels faster than light, you know,” TJ said, stretching a little. “If Rush was interested in somebody on board or vice versa, I'd have heard. The exception was Amanda Perry, and that was complicated because of the stones.”

“He and Doctor Perry were close, I know.” He didn't think he'd ever forget the look on Rush's face as they waited in Ginn's quarters to see if both women had died.

TJ nodded. “As a matter of fact, it was something of a shock to see him and her together. He just never seemed interested in people sexually. I have to say, it's strange for me to hear that you and Doctor Rush almost completed that bond through sex. I look at him and I can't see what you or Doctor Perry find so attractive.”

He smiled at her. “I guess he's an acquired taste, Lieutenant.” 

“Well. All right then, sir, you said you wanted my input on him.” She fell silent and he waited patiently, one eye on the console screen. Rush had a schematic of the ship pulled up on a huge screen in the control interface room – both he and Rush refused to call it the applecore – and was probably talking about the new area of the ship he'd opened up. 

She said, “You already know that he's very intelligent, thinks fast on his feet, and can make hard decisions. That he can be rude, lie if it suits his purpose, is not very patient with himself, other people, or problems.” 

He couldn't help the snort of agreement he made, and TJ shot him an amused look.

“He wouldn't let me do that psychological screening with him, you know. The best I ever got was, 'I'm fine,' when I'd try to stop him in the corridor to set up an appointment,” TJ said, rolling her eyes. “But he wasn't the only one, to be fair.”

“Yeah,” he said, “He usually doesn't like talking about himself and his feelings.”

“I noticed,” she said. “He seems closed off to most of the crew, except Chloe. Not sure about Eli. I guess he would be considered an introvert and needs time to himself to cope, or maybe with another person he feels close to, but not a crowd.” She tucked her tongue between her teeth, thinking. “He's brave, is physically quick and agile and doesn't place much importance on taking care of himself. He's usually sleep deprived.”

“Yep,” he said, “I think some of his temper comes from not sleeping enough, or letting his blood sugar bottom out.” 

“I agree with that,” she said, looking a little exasperated. He could empathize with that feeling. TJ's expression turned serious. “Sir, when you and Matt were on the ice planet, I was willing to give him command. I asked him what I should do, and he didn't run with that. Instead, he coached me through the problems we were having while you and Matt were out there. But he never told me what I should do. I think about that, and how he lives in that small room, and I just don't see him as being power hungry. He wants to do what he wants, though, for his research, for the mission. But to be in charge just to be in charge, no, I don't see that.”

“I don't either.” Too much dealing with people and their problems, he thought. “But he will take over if he thinks he has to. He won't get anybody following him for long though. And he knows that. At this point if he thought I was incapable, I think he'd work on Matthew again to take charge, or get the IOA to appoint Camile. You know, she really set up the civilian mutiny. Rush's situation when he came back just gave them a focus. An 'if it can happen to him, it can happen to any one of us.'”

“I think he's sad,” TJ said abruptly. “He's sad, but he's walled it off. The things he said while coming out of surgery and his coma support that, but I'm keeping the details to myself.”

“That's fine, TJ.”

She nodded, acknowledging his respect for what would come under doctor-patient confidentiality. “He's capable of regret and remorse and embarrassment. He can be vulnerable, too, despite how he tries to hide it, and he hates it if he suspects you see that about him. He'd hate it if he heard me say that. I think that's why he loathes staying in the infirmary and tries to leave before he should. He feels vulnerable here.”

He remembered watching Rush walk slowly, pained step by pained step, his hand against the corridor wall for support. “He looked like he was going to pass out any moment after his chest surgery when he showed back up to work. He couldn't even stand or sit up straight. He's so stubborn.” 

She gave him an arch look. He smiled at her, acknowledging the pot and kettle inference. She said, “His shields are shaky when he's hurt and sick. After I took out the tick and he realized that everyone must know how scared he is of the Nakai coming to get him, well, I think he wanted to will himself invisible. God, the look on his face when he realized he hadn't been fighting them but us.”

That surprised Everett. “I think most of us were impressed about how hard he would fight against being captured again. I know Greer was, after his own tick was taken out.”

She said, “Greer tried to tell him that, but he won't let you give him a compliment. He's this odd mix of confidence in his own abilities when he's arguing for his way or taking charge, but he'll disparage his actions, and play them down if you admire what he did. Like when he decided to give up his seat in the shuttle lottery. You know what I heard he said about that?”

He snorted. “That it was no hardship because he preferred to die in the star than live with a bunch of strangers on a frozen rock? Something like that?”

She nodded. 

“Well, it wasn't any hardship for him to stay on Destiny. He knew the ship would be all right.” It still rankled, what Rush had done.

TJ shot him a look. “I don't think so, sir. Neither does Eli.”

“I challenged him about it, remember?” he said bitterly. “He had no defense against what I accused him of doing. He knew he'd live through flying through the star. It's just a measure of how self-centered he can be that he didn't share the good news with the rest of us. He probably thought it was a good joke on us.”

“I think you're wrong about that, sir.” TJ crossed her arms, and the look on her face was set.

“All he had to do was deny the allegation, TJ. I would have believed him. Hell, I wanted to reward him, to include him with our celebration. Instead he just gave me one of those looks of his and said, um,” he thought for a moment and then said, “'Cheers,' and walked out of the mess.”

“It really bothers you that much? Why? If you're right about him and the star.” He wasn't sure he liked the assessing look she was giving him. He had a feeling she was filing this conversation away for future medical purposes.

“Oh, I don't know, TJ. It seemed like we had gotten over our animosity and we worked so well together. I even offered to shake hands with him.” He rolled his eyes at the memory. “Granted, he looked like he didn't know why I had my hand stuck out, but he took it. So finding out that he couldn't be trusted to be honest with me, it did bother me. It's always bothered me a lot.”

“I know.” She gave him another one of her appraising looks. “Sir, what do you want from him?”

He held out his hands, palms up. “I want him to work with me, to have my back. If I can trust him, trust his advice is not booby trapped with some selfish agenda of his, then we can do so much together. I wanted to be friends, not just work colleagues, but I know that's not going to happen.”

“Because you can't forgive him? For Riley, for lying to you?” She said it gently. He wondered if she knew about the merciful death he'd given to Riley. If she did, she'd never hinted at it. But... she might not say anything unless he did first. 

“No,” he said quietly, still thinking about the trust in Riley's eyes before he'd smothered him with his hands. “I moved on from all of that. He said something when I came back from using the stones that I can't get past. The version of Rush who died on Destiny and ascended and then came back, well, I met him. He really is just a child, and Rush is willing to see him destroyed.”

“For the greater good, I assume?” She said it non-judgmentally, but just the thought of it was enough to bring back the feelings of disappointment and disgust he'd felt toward Rush.

“Yeah. Telford is right there with him, too, on this.” God, what a thing for Rush and Telford to agree on, he mused, hating the thought. 

“What's he like, the boy?”

“He's sweet, and smart, and cute as a button.” For a moment, he thought he could feel again Malin's small, warm hand in his, see the mischievous grin on his pixie face.

“And he really doesn't know who he was?” TJ looked uncertain. 

“No,” he said, sighing. “Those memories they're pulling out of his head, he doesn't understand them, or the significance of the other things he's doing, like the Nakai math or programming.”

“You're protective of the boy.” She looked at him sympathetically, and he realized she was right.

“I guess I am.”

“And you want to be protective of Doctor Rush, too,” she said, and it wasn't a question.

Shrugging slightly, he protested, “I don't want him to be hurt, sure. That's a wider issue than just his personal safety, TJ.”

She shook her head. “It's more than that. I've seen you be concerned about him quite a bit, even if you want to knock some sense into him after you know he's okay. His surgery, the coma, the tick, when Dr. Perry died. You've cared about him long before you shared that pod.”

He fell silent. “Maybe you're right. God, he's a lot of work. And I guess I'm conflicted because of feeling protective of both of them.”

“You'll figure things out, sir.” She patted him briefly on an arm.

Stalling for a moment, he ran a hand through his hair, feeling it curl around his fingers. He should probably let Becker give him a haircut. “On a personal level, I doubt it. He's confounded me pretty much since I met the man. On a professional level, yes. I'm hopeful that the assessments from you and the science team, Greer, Matt, and James will allow me to help him fit in better with the crew.”

She nodded at him, and he gave her a rueful smile. Turning back to the monitor, he increased the volume so he could hear what the team were discussing now. The ship schematic was gone, so they'd moved on from that.

Chloe was speaking. “Okay, just to recap, after the rookies finish Doctor Rush's kino lessons and Lisa tests them, they go to me, Dale, Brody, and Eli for hands on experience.”

Brody muttered something to Volker, and Rush snapped out, “You have something to say, Mr. Brody? By all means, let's all hear it.”

Looking unimpressed by Rush's response, Brody said, sounding even more deadpan than usual, “They'll probably blow up the ship.”

“Yes,” Rush said, sounding satisfied. “No doubt they will. Mr. Wallace?”

Eli jumped guiltily and shoved his phone in his sweatshirt pocket. “Yeah, we got that covered. Besides the simulation programs Rush and I wrote that they can use to destroy all of us by pushing the wrong button on practice consoles, we're going to slave secondary portable consoles to the real consoles on the bridge or applecore and they can do their worst on those without actually making any changes.”

Volker said, “How come you didn't have us do that?”

Rush raised his eyebrows. “Mr. Volker, apply some reasoning skills to that question. I would think the answer was obvious.”

Volker waited, but nobody else jumped in to save him. “Umm, because we learned about the bridge before you had a chance to do that stuff?”

“Congratulations, you're bang to rights on that,” Rush said, looking like he thought Volker was mentally deficient. “Miss Armstrong, pass out the assignments, please.”

While Rush was looking at Chloe, Volker mouthed, “Bang to rights?” at Brody, who just shrugged. 

TJ snickered beside Everett, and he shot her an amused look. Listening to the science team was almost as good as a TV comedy sometimes.

“Okay,” Chloe said. “So I've got Camile, Lipton, James, and Inman. Brody, you've got Barnes, Baras, Willliams, and Reynolds. Eli, you've got Morrison, Walters, Lee, and Fisher. Dale, you've got Greer, Metner, TJ, and Colonel Young.” 

“No,” Rush snapped out. “Not the Colonel.”

Volker looked at Rush mildly. “No? What's the problem? The Colonel and I get along just fine.”

“He's the mission commander. I'll train him myself.” Rush looked down and away, not meeting anyone's eyes.

“Show of hands,” Volker said. “How many of you think that it's a really bad idea to put the Colonel and Rush together?”

Park, Brody, and Volker raised their hands. Eli was looking at Rush with a quizzical look and when Rush glanced at him, Eli arched his eyebrows meaningfully. Rolling his own eyes, Rush said, “This is not up for discussion. Colonel Young will finish his training with me. He's already done the kino lessons.”

Chloe was looking at Rush with a small smile on her face, and nodded to herself, like she'd been right about something. Lisa looked intrigued. 

Volker shrugged. “Okay, it's your neck, Rush. We'll just start a pool on how soon you end up with a black eye again.”

Rush smirked. “I'll take that bet. He won't lay a hand on me. Mr. Wallace, you're in charge of the wager.”

“What?” Eli sputtered. “Why do I get assigned all the betting pools?”

“Because you're a mathematician, that's why,” Rush said, and the corner of his mouth turned up just a little. Before the week they'd spent together Everett would have missed that little tell. Rush was amused.

“So are you. And you never take your turn,” Eli grumbled.

Lisa spoke up. “I'll do the next one, Eli.”

“Thanks, Lisa. So why don't you run the betting pools, Rush?” Eli asked, looking and sounding stubborn.

“I have my reasons.” Rush started flipping through a small notebook that had the cover half torn off.

“Which you're not going to share.” Eli said, a long suffering expression on his face.

“That's correct.” Rush said, still with that small, secret hint of a smile. Eli rolled his eyes, but stayed quiet. “Now, let's finish this up.” Rush's tone had turned brisk. “Miss Armstrong, do you have someone from the second group to give to Mr. Volker?”

“Sure, Doctor Rush. Dale, you can have Atienza for this round.”

Everett switched off the monitor, feeling nonplussed. Why had Rush done that, call dibs on teaching Everett himself? It had been the perfect opportunity to put more distance between them, and once again, the man had gone off in a totally different direction than expected. “Lotta, lotta work,” he muttered to himself, but TJ overheard and threw him a puzzled glance.

“What, sir?”

“Nothing. They sound like they're wrapping things up. Let's go, Lieutenant, before they scatter and Rush scampers off to god knows where.”

“Yes, sir.” TJ gave him a speculative look before she moved towards the door. 

“Anything else you want to say, TJ?” he said, as he caught up to her.

She gave him her calm, professional expression. Firmness edged with compassion. “I find it interesting that he wanted to train you himself, since he declined to do any of the rest of the crew. And sir? He's trusting you to not hit him?”

“I promised him I wouldn't anymore.” No matter how much of a jackass or secretive son-of-a-bitch or callous bastard Rush decided to be. Everett liked looking in the mirror without having to avoid the recriminations in his own eyes.

“He doesn't trust easily. I'd say you have made progress with him after all.” TJ pushed the controls and the door whirred and slid open.

He shrugged, and they left the infirmary.

* * *

The science team meeting wasn't over when he walked into the control interface room. Instead, it had heated up. Eli was yelling and waving his arms around as he paced in front of Rush where he sat at the nerve center of the room.

“How could you do that, Rush?!” Eli belted out. “Brody could have died.”

Sitting on the other console stools, the rest of the science team turned to look at Brody, who sat with arms crossed over his chest, staring daggers at Rush.

Rush shrugged. “He was fine, Eli. I watched the readings till I was sure of that.”

“I stayed up all night trying to get him out, you, you...!” Eli shouted. “Why didn't you help us?”

Rush shrugged again. “Did you ask me for help? No, you did not. Were the two of you told to not fool with the stasis pods, that more research was needed before buttons were pushed, since you had no idea of what would happen? Yes, you were. I'm not responsible for your disobedience, Eli. And Brody,” Rush shot him a look, “certainly knew better. But in the end what the two of you did proved useful. The readings I got were extremely helpful in understanding how the pods work.”

Everett watched, content for the moment to let this play out. He'd get the whole story in a minute.

“So who got him out of the pod in the morning, me or you?” Eli asked, still snarling.

“Well, what you'd tried had proved ineffective, so I released him. And I hope the two of you learned something by all of that,” Rush added primly. 

“Yeah,” Eli said, “That you're a real son-of-a-bitch, Rush.”

“I want to know,” Brody said, “if I triggered the pod into freezing me, or Eli bungled it, or did you do it?” He was still glaring at Rush, who was as calm as Everett had ever seen him.

“Doesn't matter now, does it? Perhaps in the future when I say we should proceed with caution, you'll heed my warning.”  
Rush turned to Everett. “Ah, Colonel Young. You must be curious about all this drama.”

“I'll talk to the science team about it. TJ's waiting for you. Everyone's gonna get a physical when they come out of stasis, and I know you'll want to set a good example for your team.” He gave Rush a tight smile.

“O' course,” Rush said, looking towards the exit and sliding off the stool he'd been perched on. “I'm sure Lieutenant Johansen and I can agree on an appointment time. I've a few things to attend to at the moment, however.” He started to stride towards the exit, but TJ stepped out from where she'd been waiting in the hall, and his steps faltered. Everett moved over to his side, crowding him just a little. This close, he could see exhaustion written on Rush's features. 

“Nice try, Ace,” Everett said quietly, so only Rush would hear, “but your appointment time is now. I've already had mine, by the way.” 

“Doctor Rush?” TJ said, and walked over to them. “This won't take too long.” She glanced at the rest of the team. “Eli, you'll be next in line. I'll radio you when it's your turn.”

“Colonel,” Volker called out. “Thought you'd like to know that Rush has assigned himself to complete your bridge training. If you want, I'd be happy to take over for him.”

Everett wasn't going to undermine Rush's control over the science team like that. He and Rush would just keep to a professional manner. It would be fine.

Besides, it would do the crew good to see them being civil and working together.

“Thank you, but no, Doctor Volker,” he said politely. “Doctor Rush will do just fine. Have you gone over those kino lessons yet? He did an excellent job on them.”

Rush turned and looked at him. “They're barely adequate,” he snapped out, sounding suspicious. 

Chloe spoke up. “No, they were clear and well organized. I bet you were a good teacher, Doctor Rush, when you were a professor.”

Rush looked aggravated. TJ stepped in and laid a hand on his arm. “We should go.”

Looking between her and the science team and Everett, Rush evidently decided to jump from the frying pan into the fire because he said, “Yes, let's go. I haven't got all day.” He started to walk fast, and then broke into a jog. TJ flashed an amused grin at Everett and started jogging herself. She caught up to Rush and they both left the room together.

Everett walked over to the rest of the science team. Eli still looked upset, and Brody angry. Chloe and Park were whispering together and Volker had moved over next to Brody, and had put a hand on his shoulder.

“Okay. Let's hear it,” Everett said. “Although I gather that whatever you two did went against his instructions?”

Volker spoke up. “Brody and Eli were investigating the pods and Brody got frozen in one. He was like that all night long. And it turns out that Rush knew about it and didn't get him out. Brody and I have been running diagnostics on the pods; we found the reports and figured out what happened.”

Everett said mildly, “He told you not to play around with the pods and you did it anyway, didn't you? And he let you stew in it when you got yourselves in trouble. Why didn't you ask him for help?”

Eli looked embarrassed. “We should have, I guess. But we were trying to fix it ourselves.”

Brody spoke up. “You were trying to fix it yourself. _I_ was stuck in stasis.”

“Can you tell which of the three of you put Brody in stasis?” Everett asked, because he was inclined to let this go as a burned hand teaches best about fire sort of thing, unless it was Rush who froze Brody.

“Maybe,” Eli said. “We'll let you know, Colonel.”

“You know,” Everett said severely, “if _Rush_ , the poster child for recklessness, thinks you guys should go the cautious and careful route, then you should damn well pay attention and follow his advice.” He gave Eli a stern look. He'd heard some of Eli's grumblings before they'd crossed the void about who put Rush in charge of the science team, and he figured that Eli was responsible for that little rebellion against Rush's orders.

Eli grimaced, and ducked his head.

“Okay, I'll take it from here, and you get me that analysis.” Everett sat down on the stool Rush had vacated. “Actually, guys, I came down here on another matter that involves Doctor Rush.”

The team looked a little wary. “I need your help. Now that we've hopefully shaken off the Nakai and the machine ships, I'd like to see some changes take place. Camile is going to be checking into some of them, and they'll involve the entire crew. But I'd also like to see improvements in crew morale, crew efficiency and crew safety.”

“Crew safety?” Brody asked.

“I found out that at least one crew member has been beaten up on a semi-regular basis by some vigilantes. I suspect he wasn't the only one to end up bruised and sore.” Everett looked at everyone, wondering if any of the rest of the team had been harassed. But they just looked surprised.

Park gasped. “It's Doctor Rush, isn't it? I remember times when it seemed like he might be hurt, but he always said he was fine.”

“Yes,” Everett said. “And I'm putting a stop to it. I'm also looking more critically at how Rush gets along with the crew. I think you'd all agree that there's a lot of resentment towards him, and that he pretty much stays to himself. I think you people probably know him best, and I'd like some advice on how he ticks.”

“For instance?” Brody prompted, sounding like he thought all of this was a bad, bad idea.

Holding his hands out in conciliation, Everett said, “You guys are scientists and I'd like you to take a few days and really think critically about what's worked well with Rush. When have things gone smoothly, why it did. But I'm not interested in a list of his faults or how he's screwed up. He's far from perfect and I know that already. So this is not a witch hunt, understand? It's not a gripe session, either.”

Park turned toward him, guided by his voice, he supposed. “You asked us something like this before, after we found out Rush had kept the bridge secret. But then we had all those other problems and we never followed through.”

“You know,” Volker said, “Rush is going to be seriously annoyed if he finds out.”

Everett thought a truer statement had never been said. He couldn't let the science team bear the brunt of Rush's ire. “It's not a secret. In fact, I'll tell him about it today.”

“Better you than us,” Eli muttered.

“Chloe's in charge of this focus group. She's got the background in the social sciences,” Everett said. “Chloe, do you understand what I'm asking?”

“I do.” She looked thoughtfully at Everett. “But I'd like us to meet where Doctor Rush or any of the rest of the crew won't overhear us.” 

“You can use my quarters. Just let me know when,” Everett didn't mind his quarters being used; his room was large and comfortable, with plenty of seating. 

Brody frowned. “This is gonna be weird.”

“Maybe. But I think it can help.” Everett said determinedly, “We've got to stop thinking like castaways and see ourselves as an evolving community. Rush is a part of this community, and more than that, he's essential to our survival and the mission. I think those vigilantes thought they could get away with beating him up because they figured he was such an outsider that no one would care what they did to him. Hell, Rush thought that way. He even thought I had given tacit approval to do it.”

“Really?” Eli said, his expression concerned. In fact, the entire team looked concerned.

“You know,” Volker said, “we've gotten mad at Rush plenty of times. But that doesn't mean we're okay with anybody hurting him.”

“He's part of the science team,” Park said. “Colonel, why was he beaten up? Do you know?”

Everett nodded. “I do. It was for things they held him accountable for. Some things he was responsible for, like lying about another Icarus planet. Other things he wasn't.”

“Was... Was the star blinding me one of them?” Park asked. “Somebody whispered to me after it happened that they were going to take care of business on my behalf. I didn't know what they meant. And going blind wasn't anybody's fault but my own for taking too long to get out of hydroponics. I thought everybody knew that.”

“It wasn't your fault, either,” said Eli. 

“He told me they blamed him because they thought he could have fixed the door, but he didn't care enough about you to try,” Everett said.

“He saved me from that bomb Simeon put on my back. He could have blown up with me. How can anybody think that Doctor Rush doesn't care about me?” Park said, upset.

Chloe said grimly, “People think what they want to think and ignore anything that conflicts with their world view. I'm glad you're putting a stop to it, Colonel. Guys, how about we meet right now to lay things out, exchange observations? That way Eli can give his input before he uses the stones.”

Everett watched as the science team decamped for his quarters. Then he radioed TJ.

“Johansen.” 

“TJ, are you alone?”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Radio me when you're almost done with Rush's exam. Keep him in the infirmary until I come to get him, okay? There's something I need to discuss with him and I'd rather not track him down all over the ship. Young out.”

“Yes, sir. Johansen out.” 

He clipped the radio to his belt and decided to go to the observation deck to wait. Rush would probably despise being the center of the science team's attention, that was for sure. But the potential gains outweighed any anger Rush might feel. 

Once he was standing at the railing on the observation deck, watching the springtime pastel colors streaming by, he realized he'd forgotten to get input on Rush from a very knowledgeable source. If there was a betting pool on the odds, though, he'd bet that he'd get no cooperation from that source.

Rush wouldn't like being asked how he would go about increasing his own positive interactions with the crew. Hell, he'd already told Everett that he liked to work alone. Sometimes that was probably fine. But it wasn't a workable solution all the time.

He sighed. They'd need privacy for this conversation and since his quarters were occupied, they'd go to Rush's. _This is why you get the big bucks, Everett,_ he told himself. It was hard to say how Rush would react. He might close down or he might explode. If Everett was very lucky, he'd understand that all of this attention was because Everett wanted to help him – in a professional way, of course. He'd have to make sure Rush understood their agreement still stood.

Sometimes he thought about the look on Rush's face when he'd told the other man that he would stay with him on Destiny, would stand by his side when he made his appeal to the crew. That look of wonder, of hope, of openness, of flowering trust. 

He wondered if he'd ever see it again.

* * *


	15. Unexpected Events

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added new tags. They could be considered spoilers.

**The Infirmary. Destiny**

“Colonel? This is TJ. Doctor Rush is done with his exam. He's dressing, and I've told him not to leave because I want to talk to him. And Colonel? He's on medical leave for the rest of the day and tonight. And maybe tomorrow.” TJ kept her voice pitched at that professional calm level she tried so hard to project, but he could hear exasperation undermining that. 

Rush must be acting up, probably because she grounded him. 

“Be right there, TJ.” Everett replaced his radio on his belt and started jogging to the infirmary. Walking cautiously in, he caught the tail end of TJ's discussion with his chief scientist. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she was making it very clear to Rush that he could sleep there under her watchful eye, or he could go to his quarters. 

With bad grace, Rush agreed to stay in his quarters and rest and shrugged his vest back on. TJ stepped away, nodding at Everett as he walked over to where Rush sat on a gurney, a sour look on his face.

“Rush, I'll go with you.” 

Scowling at him, Rush bit out, “I don't need a bloody _escort,_ Colonel. Lieutenant Johansen has my word.” He slid down from the gurney but held onto it for a moment as he caught his balance. 

Everett just looked at him with what he hoped was a calm expression, with no hint of the eyeroll that wanted to escape. “I'm not your babysitter, Rush. We need to talk, and my quarters are being borrowed, that's all.” He took a closer step towards the other man. “But you do look like crap. When's the last time you got any sleep?”

Rush just let out a disgruntled, dismissive sound, his nose wrinkling for a brief second, and started for the door. TJ caught Everett's arm before he went after Rush. 

“Sir, if he doesn't get some sleep, I'm not going to clear him for the mission tomorrow.”

“It's that bad?” Rush had seemed okay enough at the science team's meeting earlier, even if he looked exhausted.

“Yes,” TJ said emphatically. “He's good at masking being this tired, but not from me. Ideally, he'll sleep this afternoon and tonight, but if he can't I've got something he can take. I'll come by with it in a while. Will your meeting take long?”

“Not sure, TJ.”

“Well, try not to wind him up too much, okay? And good luck, sir.” She gave him a rueful smile and he nodded. 

“I'd better hustle. He's probably half way to his quarters by now.” Everett left then but caught up to Rush easily. He was walking slowly along the corridor and Everett realized TJ was right. Rush was more than exhausted. He was reaching the point of falling apart. The idiot. He always did this, worked himself into total collapse, forgoing sleep and meals. Sure, the first time on Destiny had been the worst, when he'd been in withdrawal, but it had happened on a lesser scale a number of times. The man should have gone to see TJ days ago.

He matched Rush's slow pace, and just kept silent. Rush shot him a look when he didn't bring up anything. Finally, half way to Rush's quarters, the other man sighed and said, “Not going to scold me for leaving Brody in the stasis pod?”

Everett shrugged. “No, unless you deliberately froze him. Then we'll have a talk about experimenting on crew members.”

“He was perfectly safe,” Rush said, with just the slightest bit of disdain.

“I believe you about that. I'm waiting on the science team's analysis on who did it, though, unless you want to admit that you pushed the freeze button.” Everett arched his eyebrows at Rush meaningfully.

“That would be giving away spoilers, I suppose Eli would say,” Rush said, a smug look on his face. “Besides, it's good practice for the science team to do that sort of research.” 

He could no more stop himself from ruffling Rush's hair than he could stop his heart from beating.

Rush made a face and an attempt to smooth his hair back down. It wasn't very successful. “Colonel,” he said, sounding exasperated. “You gave your word.”

“Not to do it in front of the science team. And I didn't.” He gave Rush a wide grin, pleased with the loophole he'd left in their agreement.

“Did you enjoy that, then?” Rush asked, sarcasm dripping from every word.

“Yep. It was fun. You ought to try out the concept some time. It'd do you a lot of good.” Teasing Rush was a very bad habit, he told himself. He really needed to stop it, and keep to his decision to only be civil with him. The trouble was, Rush was just so easy to tease. It was addictive.

But he really should stop doing it.

Rush huffed out, “I'm certainly not going to ruffle people's hair for a lark. Tell me, Colonel, do you make a habit of doing that to the rest of the crew?”

“Nope. Just you.”

“Special, am I?” Rush put a hand to his mouth, but not before Everett saw the hint of smile beginning. 

“I guess you are, Rush. So tell me, what do you do for fun? What makes you break out in a big grin, what makes you laugh out loud? What makes you happy here on Destiny?” Suddenly, he really wanted to know and looked at Rush expectantly.

Rush gave a one shouldered shrug. “Working out problems, I suppose. Algorithms, heuristics, fixing the ship.”

Shaking his head, Everett said, “No they don't. They make you feel satisfied and relieved, like you finally scratched an itch that's been bugging you. I watched you enough to know how you react. You're not joyful about them.”

Rush ran a hand through his hair, quiet for a moment before he said, “Not dying, then. And other people not dying. Are you satisfied now?”

“Name two other things,” Everett said, eyeing him skeptically. “I bet that you can't. And smirking at the idiocy of others does not count.”

The corner of Rush's mouth turned up. “Absolutely it should count.”

“Joyful, remember? Have you ever been gleeful about winning a chess match with Eli? Really enjoyed reading a book? Have your Ipod playlists made you laugh out loud with pleasure? What about spending time with Doctor Perry?”

Rush froze. “Leave her out of this.” He started walking again. “And why is it you're tagging along with me?”

He sounded desperate to change the subject, and Everett went along with him. He wasn't sure why he was even trying to draw Rush out anyway.

“I want your input on someone I consider essential to the mission, and I have something related to that to discuss with you. But not in the corridors, okay?” 

Rush gave him a suspicious look. “There's going to be shouting?”

“I hope not,” Everett said fervently. “I really hope not, but probably. So we're not doing this out where the crew can hear us.”

“Agreed,” Rush muttered. He stumbled a little and caught himself on the corridor wall. Everett was suddenly reminded of how Rush had been when he'd come back from killing Simeon. He angled himself closer to Rush, in case he needed a hand.

“You going to take TJ's advice and try to get some sleep when we're done?”

“Aye,” Rush sighed. “She's made it quite clear that I'll be banned from going down to the planet if I don't. And I want to go.”

Everett glanced at him skeptically. “Are you telling me you're bored being on Destiny?”

Rush stopped and stared at him like he was a nut job spouting delusional nonsense on a street corner. “O' course not. I've only begun to discover all the mysteries this ship holds.”

“But?”

“But the ship chose this star system for a reason, and I'd like to see for myself why.” Rush sounded puzzled as he resumed walking.

“Care to share that reason with me? And was this something you should have told me sooner?” he asked mildly. 

Startled, Rush glanced at him, a little confusion in his eyes. “Hmm. Maybe? To be quite honest, Colonel, I just didn't consider it. And I don't know exactly why this star system, not yet.”

Everett whapped him lightly on the arm. “I'm not going to get on your case about it, but this is why we should talk everyday about what we're doing. You could fill me in on your progress over supper, and I'd share with you any problems I've come across.” 

“Supper?” Rush said, like he'd never heard of the word before. 

He couldn't help it. He laughed at him, and was amused even more at the look Rush threw back. “Yes, the evening meal. Let's start our new routine tomorrow.”

“I'm quite sure I'll be too busy most of the time to stop working, Colonel.” Rush shot him another look, this one tinged with suspicion. “And I'm dubious as to your motives. I'm not going to starve to death without your supervision, you know.”

“Wow, another good reason for us to eat together. So, yeah. Supper tomorrow. Set your watch alarm for oh eighteen hundred hours.” Everett felt pleased with himself. This would be good for the crew, to see him and Rush sharing meals on a regular basis. 

Rush gave his giving in sigh. “Shouldn't Camile join us then?”

“Nah, I meet with Camile at breakfast. She's an early morning person. I'll fill her in on anything new from you then, but join us if you want to.” He wanted to laugh again at the expression on Rush's face. Rush, he knew, was not fond of early hours, unless they were a continuation of the night before. He controlled his urge to chuckle and redirected the conversation. “But what has you curious about this particular star system?” 

Rush rubbed his forehead, like he was wiping away any confusion Everett had caused. “Volker's analysis of available star systems shows quite a few that likely support life and vegetation, but when Destiny is queried about changing our trajectory to one of them, she makes it quite clear that this one should be our destination.”

“Scott's going to run the mission,” Everett said.

“So I heard.”

Everett pointed a finger at Rush's chest. “Don't go off on your own. Bring enough water with you. Make sure your radio is fully charged up and answer the damn thing for a change.”

Instead of coming back with a snippy retort, which Everett fully expected, Rush gave him one of his sideways, bird-like glances. 

After a brief moment, their eyes locked together. Rush nodded, and a smile flitted over his features.

Everett looked away. He was sliding back into being concerned about Rush and he was not going to go there. Time to change the subject.

“So, have you explained to the science team yet how you unlocked that new area of the ship?”

Rush shook his head as they turned into the corridor that his quarters were located in. 

“I've left it as an intellectual challenge for them. Eli and Chloe and Park should crack it. For now, I've materialized the door and locked them out, so they've got some incentive. Especially since I told Eli there are actual antigravity sleds in there that you can drive or move around with remotes.” 

“You know, we could use those for the mission tomorrow.” Everett wondered if Eli would try them out like he was riding a space skateboard. 

Rush said, “I plan on fetching them out myself, if I need to. But most likely I won't have to do that. For Eli, this is like one of his ridiculous games. He quite enjoys the challenge. He should be able to open the door before he leaves to go to Earth later today, if he takes into consideration what I explained about Ancient musical styles.”

“The Ancients were a pain in the ass with their secret ways and codes and encryptions, weren't they?” Everett said. “We're lucky that you figured out the pattern of the chimes that dematerialized the doorway so we could pass through.”

Yawning, Rush muttered, “Luck had nothing to do with it, Colonel. It was the algorithm I wrote once I realized those fixtures were similar to what Doctor Jackson and Doctor McKay had discovered on Atlantis.”

“Destiny's was more difficult to unlock than Janus' secret lab though?”

“Yes, yes.” Rush yawned again. “Janus' lab only had three chimes to work with. We had nine to manipulate.”

“Makes you wonder if there's more secret places like that on board,” Everett said. 

“I suspect that there are in the areas that are too damaged to explore. The ship's diagrams are no help. They stay blank until the area is unlocked. Cracking the master code didn't fill in the details where additional codes were layered in,” Rush groused. Everett kept his face straight although he was still amused by how Rush had been put out when he'd realized that Destiny hadn't granted him total access to everything after all.

“What else do you suppose is hidden away?” 

“Laundry facilities, a better water retrieval system, more stores, replacement parts, probably more chemicals for the air scrubbers.” Rush yawned two times in a row, and Everett wondered if he'd even stay awake for the talk he wanted to have with Rush.

“I can't fathom why laundry facilities would need to be under extra security,” Everett said, bemused by the thought.

“No, me neither. Bloody Ancients,” Rush grumbled.

“You remember the chime code, don't you?”

For an answer Rush whistled a haunting short tune. “I've left the code with Mr. Brody, if the others can't unlock it and I'm away.”

“Teach it to me.”

Rush whistled the code again, but slower. Everett practiced the rest of the way to Rush's quarters.

Once there, Rush slipped off his vest and stripped off his outer green-brown T-shirt, tossing them on his desk chair, then plopped down with a tired sigh on his bed and put his right boot up on his left knee. He started to unlace it, but stopped when Everett sat down beside him. 

Rush angled his body towards Everett. “And who was it you wanted to discuss, Colonel? This person who's essential to Destiny's mission?”

“You, actually.” 

Rush narrowed his eyes. “Me? Why?”

Carefully, Everett said, “You know I'm working on ways to improve our situation. We discussed them during our week together.”

“Aye. I don't know that I want to teach any math classes personally, but giving the crew a chance to improve their education is a good idea.” Rush yawned again. “But really, you should talk to Camile about all of that. You know she worked in administration at The Institute of World Politics in Washington. The IOA plucked her from that post to work for them, and I'm sure she can arrange what we would need.”

“I did. She's going to start the ball rolling on that when she goes to Earth later today.” He nudged Rush with an elbow. “And yes, you should teach a class or two, undergrad and graduate levels. You would get to know more of the crew that way, and vice versa. And maybe a language class in Ancient.”

Rush sighed, and finished unlacing his boot. He dropped it on the floor and started on the left one. “Colonel, I really don't have the time to do that sort of thing, not while there's so much to learn yet about the ship and studying the archive. Doctor Park should do it. Her being blind won't matter. You can assign someone to write out the equations for her.”

“We'll talk about Destiny University later.” Everett cleared his throat. “What I wanted to ask you about was how can the crew work more effectively with you?”

Rush looked startled, his left boot landing with a thud when it slipped out of his grasp. “I like to work alone.”

Everett gave him a wry smile. “I know that; I think we all know that, but it's not always feasible. So what can the science team, or anybody else who might have to work with you, including me, do to make it easier on you.”

Rush stretched his hands in the air, arching his back, and said, “I already told you, Colonel. Don't stop me from learning all I can about Destiny.”

 _Because it makes you wild. I remember our last conversation about this._ “Okay, good start. What else?”

“You're being serious?”

“Yes.” 

Rush ran a hand through his hair, his eyebrows lifted as he took time to think about Everett's request. “Well, now,” he said, and leaned forward a little. “People should keep their inane observations to themselves and stating the obvious is annoying.” 

He looked skeptically at Everett. “Is that the sort of thing you wanted to hear?”

Everett nodded, and Rush shrugged. “Okay, then. I wish everybody would stop asking me how sleep deprived I am and don't chatter on and on about irrelevant topics when I'm concentrating on something important. Don't whine about how tired you are, or hungry, or bored, or how you're upset with your girlfriend or boyfriend when we're working together.” He glanced at Everett. 

“You're doing fine, keep going,” Everett said, kind of impressed that Rush was actually cooperating.

He yawned again and leaned back on his hands, arching his back. “When I'm in a truly evil mood, I like to go and bang on conduit. God knows there's an entire ship's worth that needs to be taken apart, cleaned, or replaced. So if I'm doing that, just stay clear.”

“Let you work out your cranky mood without interference. Got it.”

Rush's mouth quirked up a little as he glanced at Everett, sitting up again. “Yelling at me and the science team to provide a miracle faster doesn't help whatever desperate situation we've gotten ourselves into. It's not like we're bloody mules and cracking a whip down on our backs will make us stop stalling and start pulling our weight. And asking us to explain what we're doing when we're working as hard and as fast as we can is distracting.”

Rush was looking at him with raised eyebrows again, and Everett gave him a rueful smile. “Guilty. I'll try and not do that, but I have to know if what you're doing is going to work.” 

“After I finish your bridge training, you can follow along for yourself what our progress is. We should start after we go back into FTL.” Rush yawned and closed his eyes, his body swaying a little.

“You can get some hands on experience in the shuttle before we jump, though. If you're not as exhausted as you are now.” Everett put a hand on Rush's shoulder, causing Rush to startle a little, his eyes snapping open. “Why aren't you sleeping?”

Rush shrugged. “Thought we were going to not quiz me anymore about that sort of thing.”

Everett let go of Rush's shoulder. “TJ and I are going to be the exception to that rule. But we'll tell the science team to bring their concerns to her or to me, not you, if you're heading for another meltdown.”

Rush closed his eyes again and rubbed his forehead with two fingers. “I'm no gonnae pass out again. I was in withdrawal that first time.”

“What about the times you fell asleep on a shower bench, or in the mess, or in the control interface room? You wouldn't wake up; you probably don't even know that TJ would come and take your blood pressure and your temperature.” But this time there had been no emergency to keep Rush on his feet, so his trouble sleeping stemmed from something else. Everett had a pretty damn good idea of what that was.

Rush slowly opened his eyes. “It's no gonnae happen again, so shut it, would you?” But there was no bite to Rush's words. 

“Are you having nightmares because of the hypnosis attempts?” Everett asked gently.

Rush gave him a studied look and then nodded. 

“I'm sorry you're having trouble.” 

“Don't worry about it, Colonel,” Rush said, and god he sounded so tired. “I'll take Lieutenant Johansen's medicinal brew tonight if I can't sleep again.”

“Okay. There's something else I need to tell you,” Everett said, a little reluctantly. The productive conversation they'd been having would likely be over after he filled Rush in on the focus group. 

“Joy. What is it?”

“I asked Chloe to run a focus group with the science team.”

He must have given something away with the way he said that because Rush narrowed his eyes. “And would the subject be the head of the science team?”

“Bingo.” He couldn't help but admire how sharp Rush's mind was, to deduce that from their previous conversation and probably his facial expressions.

“Colonel, what are ye doing?” Rush groaned.

“My job. This is something I've struggled with since I met you, trying to understand you, trying to work with you. Our track record has been terrible, but we're doing better now. I just want to continue that trend and extend it to the entire crew. Chloe will keep things positive and her background gives her the best expertise.”

“If you think I'll ever be one of your soldiers, you're delusional,” Rush said darkly.

“God no,” he assured Rush. “You'd make the worst soldier in history. Although you and the rest of the civilian crew need to do some cross training with the military on board, just like they need to learn some of the skills from the scientists on board.”

Rush was still giving him a hard look.

“Look,” Everett said, “I'm asking the science team to use their skill sets the same way I asked you to tell me how things can be improved. You are essential to this mission. You've got a target on your back and I want it removed. I think this can help. The science team knows about you getting beat up, by the way. They were very concerned.”

Rush just flopped backwards on his bed. “So the science team is gonnae study me like I'm a lab rat. Marvelous.” But there was no anger in his voice, just resigned exasperation.

Everett nudged him, and Rush looked over. “Actually, you're taking this pretty well. I expected a lot more fireworks.”

“I'm too tired to explode. Maybe tomorrow.”

“I'll let you get some rest,” Everett said, and got to his feet.

“You do that.” Rush took off the watch Everett had loaned him earlier in the week and set the alarm while Everett watched him. He noticed and said, “I'll be attending Lieutenant Scott's briefing this evening.” He slipped the watch back on his wrist and stayed sprawled out on his back, blinking slowly.

“Okay.” Everett took a few steps and then stopped, looking down at the exhausted man who was barely keeping his eyes open. “And Rush, if you're gonna be pissed off, be pissed off at me, not your science team. This was my idea, and I'm responsible for it, not them.”

“Right. I'll make a note of that, shall I?” Rush narrowed his eyes at Everett, but Everett suspected it was more along the lines of trying to focus on him than anything else.

“Sure. After all, you know what Harry Truman said.” 

“Him again,” Rush grumbled. “So what the fuck did he say, that you feel the need to keep quoting the man?”

“The buck stops here.”

“Meaning?”

Everett crossed his arms, watching the confused look on Rush's face. “In the end, I'm responsible for everyone and everything on this ship.”

“Yes, I suppose you are.” Rush added quietly, “But you're not by yourself, Colonel. I gave my word to stand by you and I will.”

Everett smiled down at him. “Thanks, Nicholas.” 

Rush pulled his feet onto the bed and curled up, closing his eyes. His socks had seen better days; they looked almost as bad as his own. His breathing deepening, Rush looked like he was going to fall asleep immediately. Everett was almost to the door when Rush mumbled, “Shite.” 

“What?” Everett asked him, turning around.

Rush didn't open his eyes but he said, sounding sleepy and cranky, “I need to tell Brody that he'll have to orient Doctor Zelenka to Destiny's systems, since I've been sent to my room to nap.”

“I'll radio him. You go to sleep.” Everett waited to see if Rush had anything else he'd forgotten to mention.

“Like you can tell me what to do, Colonel.” It came out as a slurred mumble, but Everett deciphered what Rush had said with no trouble.

“Yeah, yeah. Go to sleep.” The words were brusque but his voice had pulled a fast one on him because his tone was gentle and comforting. Damn it.

He stepped back to the bed and looked at Rush. If he wasn't dead asleep already he was really good at faking it, because his breathing was slow and his eyelids were fluttering, like he'd already been captured by a dream. At least with Everett being awake, he wouldn't share this one.

He left Rush's quarters feeling that things had gone much better than he'd figured they would. 

He returned to his own quarters, passing TJ on the way. She showed him the container of dark purple liquid she was bringing to Rush, in case sleep still eluded him after Scott's briefing. 

Camile stopped by to say goodbye before heading to the stones room, pausing at his open doorway before he waved her to come inside. She looked happy; he knew she was looking forward to going back to Earth for a few days.

He told her how it had gone with the science team and with Rush.

She looked at him with an interested expression. “Something's different between you and Rush, Colonel. He never would have accepted this focus group so calmly before we went into stasis.”

He gave her a crooked smile. “We worked some things out during the week we spent together, that's all.”

“Well, I'm pleased about it.” Her own expression turned a little wry. “Having you two not butting heads all the time will be so much better for the crew. And for you and Rush, of course.”

“We're not friends, you understand,” he protested. “We'll never see eye to eye enough for that to happen, and I haven't forgotten all the crap he's pulled, but our working relationship has become civil enough, and we're going to keep it that way.”

She smiled in a way that made him say, “Camile,” and she held her hands palm out in front of her chest.

“I didn't say anything, Everett.”

“Let's keep it that way.”

She swapped out the smile for a look of concern. “Keep an eye on Nicholas, would you? Those hypnosis sessions we did haven't been very fruitful, but they were hard on him.”

“TJ's going to help him get some sleep.”

“Good. He deserves a peaceful night. And I've got to go. Eli will be waiting. Goodbye, and take care of our crew.” She drew him into a warm hug.

After she left, he looked around his quarters, remembering Rush writing on his walls, sleeping in his bed, sitting on his lap as the nightmare that haunted Everett spilled from him.

They'd made their choice. They weren't friends, but they were colleagues. It would be enough.

* * *

**Homeworld Command. Pentagon.**

Camile opened her eyes. Transitioning from one body to another should have been old hat by now, but it wasn't. She felt long hair on her shoulders, looked down to see herself in a stylish blue print dress, shorter than she liked, and topped by a white, loose linen jacket, tall leather boots on her feet. She glanced at the mirror that was thoughtfully left on the table. As expected, she'd switched with Doctor Mehta.

“Oh, crap,” a male voice said. She turned and looked at Eli. He stared back at her with David Telford's eyes.

“Corporal,” she asked, pushing down the irritation she felt. “Mr. Wallace was supposed to switch with Doctor Zelenka. Can you explain why General Telford took his place?”

The young woman gave her a deadpan look. “Ma'am, in my experience, generals don't usually explain much to someone of my rank. They just give the orders.”

She sighed. “Is General O'Neill available?”

“No, ma'am. He's off world.” 

Eli stood up. “Rush is gonna be ticked off,” he said. “He was looking forward to consulting with Dr. Zelenka about ship repairs. I could tell because he almost smiled during the science team's meeting this morning.” He felt Telford's flat stomach. “And he stayed up most of the night, I heard, going through the data base and making things ready.”

No, Camile thought. That was just an excuse so he didn't have to try to sleep. The dark circles under his eyes, the twitching of his eyelids, the exhaustion that was so evident to her after dealing with him for two years – or should she count it as five? – he preferred all of that to the nightmares of the Nakai. Even though their hypnosis sessions had been fairly useless, the memories that he did have had been stirred back up. After their last attempt he'd admitted to the nightmares. She was a little touched he'd told her, and after hearing Chloe's horrific experiences she had an idea of just how awful it must be to be trapped in nightmare memories of being tortured. 

“Eli, have a good visit with your mother. Tell her I said hello,” Camile said, putting a hand on his arm. 

“I will, and the same to Sharon.” Suddenly he looked a little panicked. “Um,” he said. “I hope I didn't just put my foot in it.”

She smiled at him. “It's fine, Eli. She's expecting me after I meet with the IOA. I'll see you back here in three days, but call me if you need me. Your mother has the number.” She wouldn't think of the message she had read yesterday, when she used the stones to arrange the upcoming crew visits and to request Doctor Zelenka's help. If she did, tears would overwhelm her again. Her Sharon had waited for her.

“Good. Great.” He patted Telford's belly again. “I'm gonna get my mom to bake my favorite cookies, and stuff. Telford can afford the calories.” He walked towards the door and an airman nodded at him. “Hey, did General Telford leave some regular clothes here?”

“He didn't mention anything like that,” the airman said, “but we can stop at a store if you like. It's on General O'Neill. He said to get you anything you need.”

“Really?” 

“Within reason,” the airman added dryly. “Also, we have some nonclassified information on what's been happening the last three years you can take with you.”

Eli walked out of the room with his escort. “So, how awesome was The Hobbit?” she heard him say before he was out of earshot.

She sighed, her mind returning to the tasks she needed to accomplish on this visit. She knew that based on what Colonel Young had told her that these meetings with the IOA were going to be difficult.

* * *

**Colonel Young's Quarters. Destiny**

The door to his quarters slid open and Everett stopped the video he was watching. Eli stood in the doorway but... No, not Eli. And not Radek Zelenka either. Not with that ramrod posture.

“Oh, let me guess. General Telford, I presume?” Everett said tiredly and put his laptop down on the coffee table.

Telford nodded. “Everett.” He glanced around the room.

“He's not hiding under the bed, David,” Everett said mildly.

“How about in it, Everett?” Telford strode into the room and dropped down on the couch next to him. “Your taste has gone to shit.” 

“Mmm.” Everett decided to hell with this cat and mouse crap Telford lived for. “You know, I don't have time to dick around with you, so I'll just lay it out. One, I know you were in my quarters the last time you were on board. Two, you think from what you saw that Rush and I are lovers. Three, I don't give a shit what you think; you've got no leverage on me, thanks to changes in the regulations. And Rush is not in the chain of command, he's a civilian.”

Telford made a derisive noise. “Is he a good fuck, Everett? I always thought he would be, but he's too high maintenance to be anything but a one night stand for my taste.”

Everett shook his head. “Drop it, David. And I'll respectfully request that you not be an asshole and speak that way about any of my crew.”

“Why sleep with him?” Telford shot out.

Everett raised his eyebrows. “You know it's none of your business. But I'll throw you a bone. We were cold. _You_ gave him hypothermia when you dragged him out of the shower. I didn't want a repeat of that, so I kept him with me.”

“Are you saying you didn't have sex, only cuddled up together to stay warm?” Telford's tone of voice left no doubt that he thought that was bullshit.

Everett plastered on a blank expression and hardened his tone. “I'm done saying anything except if you give him any shit about what you think you know I'll have Camile file a complaint with the IOA. Sir.”

“Irrational behavior of a commanding officer needs to be investigated, Everett.”

“Yours or mine, sir?”

“You're funny, Everett.” He looked indecisive, then said, “Look, I'm concerned about you. You know you weren't up for this mission, you told O'Neill yourself that. Being here on Destiny has been hell on you and I just don't want to see you fall down a rabbit hole with someone who'll end up gutting you.” He placed a hand on Everett's shoulder. “So I hope for your sake you're not with him. He can't be trusted, or have you forgotten what he's really like?”

Everett said firmly, “David, I said to drop it.”

Telford let go of Everett's shoulder, “Somebody needs to look out for you, since you've done such a piss poor job of it yourself. So if you haven't started sleeping with him in the biblical sense, then stay away from the manipulative little fucker. Don't fall for him because in the end he'll just leave you bleeding.”

Everett snorted. “Put a sock in it, Dear Abby. After Emily, it's a little much to be given relationship advice by you.”

Telford spread out his hands. “I wasn't in my right mind, Everett. And what I did wasn't the reason your marriage fell apart. You told me that yourself.”

“I know.” But, Everett thought, the Lucian Alliance only changed your loyalty. Your tactics were your own, you ruthless son-of-a-bitch. I'm not going to let you oust me or Rush from this ship, old friend, although I guess you do believe you're doing the right thing. He slapped Telford on the leg and said in a conciliatory tone, “Now why are you here instead of Doctor Zelenka?”

“Yesterday when Camile reported in she said there were videos of Chloe Armstrong and Rush being hypnotized. I need to see those first hand.”

Everett shook his head. “Chloe, yes. I'm watching hers now. But Rush wasn't able to be hypnotized. However he did say for the record what he remembered. It's not much, though.”

Telford muttered, “Still an obstructionist little bastard, I see.”

Shaking his head, Everett said, “Not about this. It was his idea to try hypnotism.”

“Then why didn't he go under?” Telford sounded personally affronted by Rush's failure.

“I don't know,” Everett sighed. “He and Camile tried several times, but it just didn't happen. She'll try again when she returns.”

Everett started rewinding the video. “This is Chloe's first session.”

“How many are there?”

“Three. Camile thinks she's gone as far with all of that as she can.” Everett paused the recording where Chloe had described being taken off the ship.

Telford pushed the sleeves of Eli's sweatshirt up. “I wish there was a way to use the memory device, but Lee doesn't think it would work on a switched body. I'd like to try it anyway but so far I haven't gotten the go ahead. And little Rush hasn't coughed up much on being with the Nakai, even with going up to the next setting. And no, it's not painful for him, other than attaching the thing.”

“Yeah, about Malin.” Everett kept his tone casual, but he felt anything but that. 

Telford looked peeved. “Don't call him that. It reinforces the belief that he's a child.”

“He is a kid,” Everett said, his tone still mild. “It'll take a direct order for me to call him anything other than his name.”

Telford gave him an assessing look. “I heard that you met him. He dreamed about you a lot that night; nothing useful, things like talking together while he made a chess set and catching you when you jumped from the Ursani ship.”

“Are you hurting him, David?” He'd hurled out the accusation, hoping to catch Telford off guard.

Telford stared at him. “I don't like Rush and I don't trust him. But I'm not going to hurt him, Everett. Especially not when he's so little. I haven't even spanked him, although there's been times he's deserved it.” 

“Spanking?” Everett stared back at Telford. He really hadn't been expecting that. “You sure you're not seeing Malin as a kid?” 

“I need to remind myself every so often about who he really is, sure. Once I'm done with him I don't care if he regresses to the age he looks. He won't be my problem,” Telford said, a little spitefully. 

Everett stopped himself from glaring at Telford, but just barely. “Rush thinks Malin's going to ascend again once he's done warning about the Nakai, if it is the Nakai that's the threat.”

“Bon voyage, then.” And Telford gave a careless wave of his hand upwards. 

“You're such a cold-hearted bastard, David,” he said, giving in and glaring anyway at the son-of-a-bitch. 

Telford shrugged off his glare without returning it. “Somebody has to be. We're dealing with high stakes here, and you know what, Rush is on board with me about his double.”

“Yeah, I know,” Everett growled. “I think you're both wrong to place so much on one little kid's skinny shoulders.”

“We'll see how all of this plays out, but I'm going to keep right on pushing little Rush. In the end, you'll see that I was right to do so.” Telford said, and his expression reminded him of every fervent look he'd ever seen in some fanatic's eyes.

Everett looked away, knowing that there was little he could do. Still, he could let Telford know he was watching out for that sweet little guy. “So, Malin was evasive when I mentioned you. Something's not right.”

Telford shrugged, obviously not caring anything about Everett's concern. “I set limits for him, and since he doesn't like the consequences of not obeying, he's reluctantly cooperating. That's probably what you picked up on. And that's pure Rush, by the way. You've got to agree about that.”

Everett gave a wave of acknowledgment. “What kind of consequences?”

“God, Everett. Nothing that hurts him. I can't believe you feel you have to even ask me about this.” He shook his head, a strong look of disbelief playing out over Eli's features.

“I'm going to look out for Malin. Well,” Everett amended, aware of how how limited he actually was, “as much as I can.”

“Right,” Telford said, rolling his eyes a little. “So Chloe Armstrong?”

Everett let his concern for Malin retreat. He'd given warning to Telford that he was on Malin's side and that was about all he could do right now. Time to focus on other problems. “If you recall, she was with the Nakai for just hours the first time, but she did remember things in more detail. She remembered even less about the second time. She was unconscious when the Nakai sent her back to Matt.”

“How's she doing with all of this?” Telford sound genuinely concerned, but then, he had known Chloe and her parents. 

“She's having nightmares.”

“I'm not surprised,” Telford said quietly.

“Here. See for yourself why.” Everett pushed play and they listened as Camile's soothing voice led Chloe back through her memories.

* * *

“Play that first part again, when she leaves her room,” Telford ordered, his face intent.

Everett obligingly did, and they watched as Chloe described what had happened.

“There was this sound. A thump sort of noise and I got off my bed and went to the window and looked out. But I couldn't see anything.” Chloe frowned. “We were supposed to stay in our quarters, us civilians. I told myself that I should stay in my quarters, but instead I went out in the hall. I was so curious, I had to find it. I told myself to stop, but I couldn't. It was like I was on the end of a string that someone was winding up and I had to come closer and closer. But I wasn't scared. The closer I got, the more soothed I felt, it felt right, what I was doing, although I knew Matt and Colonel Young wouldn't like it.” 

Chloe made a gasping sound and Camile said soothingly, “These are only memories, Chloe. You are safe, there is nothing to be afraid of now. You cannot be harmed, you are only looking back into your experiences. You can stop at any time. You are in control.”

“I am in control,” Cloe repeated. 

“You are,” Camile affirmed and some of the tension left Chloe's face. “Chloe, can you tell me more about leaving your room?” 

Chloe's pretty young face looked so innocent to Everett. On the recording she said, “'Curiosity killed the cat.' I kept thinking that while I walking down the hallway. My mother used to say that to me, when I wanted to go somewhere new and she was afraid I might get hurt, but my father would tell her, and me, 'satisfaction brought her back.' I wanted to tell her, 'Mom, I have to go, I have to see what this is and it will be wonderful.' And then there was this noise, like a saw or something. I saw Dunning and he had his rifle and he motioned me to stay put, but there was this light coming down from the ceiling and I had to see it, I had to go, and in my head my mother was saying, 'No, don't do it.' and as I got closer I heard my father's voice saying 'No, don't go, baby. This is a trap.' But I had to see, I had to see for myself what was drawing me and I stood under the light and I looked up.”

Chloe started to rock back and forth and Camile took some time to calm her back down. 

“Pause it,” Telford said. 

Everett touched the keyboard and the screen froze with Chloe looking haunted, her eyes wide, tears frozen on her lashes and on her cheeks. 

“I want to talk to Dunning.” Telford got up and stretched. 

Everett thumbed his radio. “Greer, this is Young. Find Airman Dunning and send him to my quarters. Oh, and Eli switched with General Telford, if you haven't heard.” 

“Yes, sir, Colonel.” Greer's voice betrayed no hint of the animosity he felt towards Telford. “Any other orders, sir?”

Everett replied, “If Rush is late to the nineteen hundred briefing Lieutenant Scott's running on the expedition tomorrow, go and get him, okay?”

“Yes, sir.” Greer's respectful voice came across loud and clear. “The Lieutenant's already notified all of us who are slated to go tomorrow. We're meeting in the mess after dinner.”

“In that case make sure he's there in time to eat, then. Thank you, Master Sergeant. Young out.”

Telford was giving him a look. “Since when did you appoint yourself as Rush's keeper?”

Everett shrugged. He suspected that Rush might just sleep through his watch alarm. “He gets caught up in work and puts off sleeping and eating until he's a mess. He's easier to get along with when his blood sugar isn't on empty and he isn't exhausted.”

Telford was still eyeing him. “Right. So, my impression is that Chloe was compelled to come to the Nakai, despite part of her knowing she was doing the wrong thing.”

“Yeah,” Everett nodded. He'd met with Rush and the science team on this, and they'd brought in all the biologists on it. “Rush thinks that at least some of the Nakai have that telepathic ability. He thinks it's biological and evolved from how they lured their prey to them. The biologists on board agree with him. He doesn't remember being compelled like Chloe was, though. They just grabbed him when he was trying to figure out that crashed Nakai ship and forced him to come with them.”

“Rush have any other thoughts on Chloe's abduction?”

Everett said, “He thinks that she was moved into the scout ship by telekinesis. Another ability at least some of them have.”

“I wish we had him under hypnosis.” Telford didn't sound vindictive for a change. 

“He wants that too.”

Telford shook his head. “No, I don't think he does. Or at least his subconscious doesn't want to relive that week he spent with them.” 

Everett thought Telford might be right about that. “Do you want to continue watching Chloe's session?”

Telford nodded and Everett hit play.

* * *

Dunning saluted both of them and then stood at parade rest. “Sirs,” he said, a bit guardedly, his forehead wrinkling. 

“Have a seat, Dunning,” Everett said. “Just wanted to get your take on what happened when Chloe Armstrong was abducted by the Nakai.”

“Report, Airman,” Telford threw out. 

“Yes, sir, General, sir.” Dunning said crisply, but Everett heard the sarcasm underneath his words. He covered his mouth briefly, hiding any hint of a grin. Telford was his commanding officer, after all. Dunning didn't need to know that he thought Telford was being a bit of an ass, swaggering into the conversation like that. Rush, though. Rush would have picked up on Everett's thoughts. Good thing he wasn't here. That man had no compunction about puncturing overblown windbags, even when it wasn't in his own best interests. It had been a miracle that he had kept to the smarmy approach with Senator Armstrong, but then once on board Destiny he didn't think the two had crossed paths. Just as well. TJ had told him that even Mathew, who was generally even-tempered, had said some sharp words to the Senator when he was throwing his non-existent authority around during those first hours on board. 

Dunning dropped gracefully onto the other couch, facing him and Telford. “I was on patrol, heard a loud thump, went to investigate it. Heard a loud buzzing sound. Saw the girl and motioned for her to stay the hell put. She saw me, but she ignored my signal. The Nakai finished cutting a round hole in the hull and the piece dropped down onto the deck. A bright light shone down. Chloe walked over there like she was going to see something interesting, like she was at a mall or a park. Somewhere where there wasn't any danger. She stepped up on the circle of the hull and then put her hands up over her head. She looked scared to death all of a sudden but she didn't get down or move away. Then she was yanked up, although I couldn't see how, and she disappeared. The Nakai pulled away and I almost got blown out into space until the shield covered up the hole. I notified you what had happened.”

Telford said, “You didn't feel any compulsion to go to that light, see what was going on.” It was Rush's theory that when a Nakai used mental compulsion, they could only work on one person at a time.

Dunning shook his head emphatically. “No sir. I stayed back where I had some cover so I could shoot any hostiles who invaded the ship.”

“You didn't stop Chloe from going over there,” Telford remarked in a steely voice. “She was a civilian, Airman. Why didn't you protect her?”

“Sir, I would have had to expose my position to grab her. She came from another corridor. I thought at the time that I needed to stay in place as the first line of defense against invaders. And I'll admit it, sir. I thought she was stupid for going over there and I wasn't inclined to risk the rest of the crew's safety to save her dumb ass.”

“She was compelled, Airman. She wasn't going to take a peek at the aliens for the hell of it,” Telford barked out.

“I did not know that at the time, sir. If I had, I would have made the attempt,” Dunning said stoically.

“Not his fault, General,” Everett said quietly. “If they had invaded, we would have needed him right where he was.”

Dunning looked at both of them and then, when Everett gave him a nod, said, “The way I see it, sirs, is that it's Rush's fault. He must have told them about us being on Destiny. The other guys and me, we figured out Rush took one of the stones; it's why you ended up switching with that alien, Colonel. We figure it must have whetted their appetite to find out more about us, and take the ship.”

“They've been following Destiny across galaxies for thousands and thousands of years, Dunning. You know that. And it wasn't Rush's fault he was captured and tortured.” No, Everett thought. That can be laid at my door. 

“Dunning, describe again how Chloe was taken into the scout ship,” Telford ordered. 

“Just like I told you, sir. She raised her arms up in the air and then she was floating fast up into the hole in the hull,” Dunning said stoically. 

“Did you see any sort of beam enveloping her, or hear any sounds?” Telford asked.

“No sir. And I've got pretty good hearing.”

“Maybe Rush is right about them using telekinesis, but we can't say for sure. This could be some sort of tractor beam,” Telford said. “It wasn't like Asgard beaming technology, she wouldn't have floated up in that case.”

Everett said thoughtfuly, “Rush told me that after he came back that he would have flashes, just disconnected glimpses about the Nakai and their ship. He couldn't make total sense of it. He thought it came from when he interrogated that one Nakai with the mind device to find Chloe and a way off the ship. Maybe his hunch is more than a hunch, then, about the telekinesis.”

“We need to know as much as possible. I'd love to stick one of those memory devices on his head and see what comes up,” Telford said. “Where is he, anyway? I want to talk to him.”

“It will have to wait, General. Lieutenant Johansen's medical orders. She made him take a couple of hours off to try to get some sleep. He should be left alone in his quarters for now, but why don't you come to the briefing tonight and talk to him afterwards.” Everett would make sure that T.J. would pull medical rank to keep Rush in sight after the meeting.

Telford raised his eyebrows. “Sounds like a plan.” He threw a glance at Dunning. “I need to meet with Dr. Mehta anyway right now about some things that were found in the database. Homeworld Command is very interested in the aftereffects of stasis.”

God, Everett thought. David was like a dog digging for a bone about those stasis pods. 

“There isn't much new on Rush's video, but you're welcome to take a copy with you to watch,” and Everett handed him a flashdrive.

“That'll work and then I'll talk to Rush after the briefing,” Telford said. He plucked at Eli's grimy sweatshirt. “I'm going to change into some BDUs. I think I'll invite myself along for the mission tomorrow, too.”

“I'm sure Lieutenant Scott can find a job for you on the planet, General.” David must be getting antsy with flying a desk, Everett thought, a little amused.

“I'm looking forward to it. Sometimes I miss being on a gate team,” Telford said and exited Everett's quarters.

“Sir?” Dunning asked. “Am I dismissed?”

“Not yet.” Everett gave him a careful look. “Dunning, are there other things you've blamed Rush for, over the last couple of years?”

Dunning stared at him like he'd grown a second head. “With all due respect, sir, are you joking? He's the reason we're stuck out here. And why Riley was killed. He's no kind of soldier and doesn't respect the military. But, I figure all of that's been squared, since he killed Simeon. I don't have a beef with Rush, sir.”

“But some of the crew do.”

Dunning grimaced. “Can you blame them, sir? But I'm okay with the man. He did me a solid, by taking out the guy who almost killed me, and I'm not going to forget that. Hell, he's even got some credit coming for the next time he pisses the crew off by doing something stupid again, like when he hid the bridge.”

Everett smiled at him. “A solid, Dunning? Not a word I'd expect to hear from you.”

Dunning shrugged. “It's these kids on board, sir. They've warped my vocabulary.”

Everett laughed. He'd known Dunning for a long time, been through hell with him on PIX-874. Dunning wasn't out to hurt Rush; he wasn't one of the vigilantes.

“Dismissed, Airman.”

“Sir,” Dunning replied and threw him a salute before striding for the door.

 

* * *

Telford kept busy with his own projects evidently, because he didn't return to talk to Everett or go to Rush's quarters – a word to Greer had resulted in a kino monitoring Rush's door. Everett went to the mess early that evening, welcoming James and several of the others who had been released from stasis that afternoon. Then he'd had a brief meeting with Matt over hopefully one of the last meals of protein paste for a while. They discussed the expedition for late next morning, when Destiny was due to drop out in range of several planets. Matt would handle the mission, though. Everett wanted him to get more leadership opportunities under his belt, since he wanted to put him up for promotion later this year. TJ, and James, too. 

He told Matt to keep Rush and Telford apart while they were on the planet. It should be easy enough to do, since there would be several teams.

He didn't see Rush in the mess and hoped that he'd managed to get some decent sleep.

Chloe was his last visitor for the evening, stopping by to tell him how the initial focus group meeting had gone. Eli had volunteered to do a little snooping while he was on Earth about Rush.

Everett frowned, a little alarmed. “He's not going to do any hacking, is he?” He and Chloe were sitting across from each other on his couches, and she looked over at him. 

“He's going to look Rush up on Rate My Professor. Of course, you have to take some of those comments with a grain of salt, because let's face it. No way would Doctor Rush's classes be easy A's,” Chloe said, smiling at him. 

“He probably made students cry buckets over his exams,” Everett said wryly.

Chloe's grin was just a little too much, her expression just a little too innocent. 

He raised his eyebrows at her, and she giggled. 

It was nice to hear, after watching her terrified face and tears on the video he and David had watched this afternoon.

“Okay, what's got you looking like the cat that ate the canary?” he asked.

“Oh, just a little betting pool we set up about Doctor Rush. Want in?” She raised her eyebrows in a parody of inquiry.

That again, Everett thought. “I'm not going to hit him, Chloe. Besides, shouldn't I be disqualified?”

Her expression puzzled, she said, “You know about that one? Doctor Rush said you wouldn't hurt him. I bet that you wouldn't either. But this is a different bet. Besides rating your professor on academic criteria, you can rate him or her on their hotness. I bet that Doctor Rush has a bright red chili pepper icon on his page.”

He was not touching this bet with a ten foot pole. 

“So Colonel Young, what do you think? Did his students think he was hot, or not?” Her eyes were dancing with mischief.

Hot, red hot, call the fire department hot, Everett thought. But to Chloe he said, “I think I'll abstain on that one.”

“TJ voted not hot. So did James and Park and Eli.” She rolled her eyes as she named them and he gathered she didn't agree with them. “But me, Brody, and Volker voted hot. Greer voted hot, too.”

He choked out, “Greer?” and Chloe giggled again.

“Uh-huh. Said it was because people would think his accent was sexy.” She grinned at him again. “Are you sure you don't want to vote, Colonel? What do you think about the way Rush talks?”

He gave her the look he gave Eli when the kid was dithering on about movie quotes instead of something important to report. “Did anything useful come out this first meeting, Chloe?”

She smoothly switched from laughing to a neutral expression. “Yes, I think we've made a good start. And Colonel, are you familiar with some of the psychology experiments with positive reinforcement? I read of one experiment where a class by either slumping in their seats and looking away, or sitting up straight and making eye contact, influenced their professor to move to the right, until he was up against the wall. I'm not saying we want to do that to Doctor Rush, but we can work on showing him appreciation for actions that we want to build on.”

“He doesn't take compliments very well,” Everett said dryly. 

“We know,” she said, her tone commiserating. “The appreciation would have to be more subtle than that. Say he shares something he finds with the team, instead of hoarding it away like a dragon with his gold. Maybe smiles, bringing him tea, a touch on the shoulder, an offer to help him on one of his pet projects.”

“Okay, I can see that, but I think he'll be annoyed by that kind of manipulation.” Annoyed was probably too tame, actually, Everett thought.

Chloe tilted her head a little, her eyes thoughtful. “He would if we were faking it, but genuine appreciation, well, I think he would respond to it.”

“You do?” Everett said, feeling dubious.

She nodded and said, “Yes, I do. Colonel, after Doctor Rush and I came back from the Nakai ship the rest of the science team and Matt sat with us while we ate. I think the team felt genuinely close to Rush right then, and proud of him for escaping and saving me. And he didn't push them away. I think he welcomed their company. Eli and the team had a much greater understanding of just how much work Doctor Rush had been doing, and that his were pretty big shoes to fill. They respected him more, and I think Doctor Rush felt much better being at the table, with us, with human beings who knew him.”

“Sounds like you're on the right track. Rush knows about the focus group, by the way. He mostly seemed exasperated, but he was halfway asleep and really exhausted. He might kick up a fuss after he wakes up.” Everett hoped things would continue to stay calm. Maybe they would as long as Volker didn't say anything to Rush about it. It never took much for Volker to rub him the wrong way. 

“I think he'll be all right. I'll talk to him about it.” Chloe said, with absolute confidence. Everett hoped she was right.

“Well, if anybody can get him to understand that we're just trying to help him, it would probably be you,” Everett said wryly. 

“You and Doctor Rush seem to be closer,” Chloe said, a little too casually. “Matt said you spent a lot of time together after stasis.”

“I wanted to keep a close eye on him,” he admitted. “I didn't trust him not to disappear into the ship and freeze to death or do something risky and dangerous because he was curious.” 

She smiled at him. “I'd like to say you're exaggerating, but after seeing him in a coma after he snuck and sat in the chair, I'm glad you did.” Her expression turned mischievous. “Did he drive you up the wall?”

Surprising himself by being truthful, instead of just laughing and saying, 'yes,' he said, “No. He was good company.”

Tilting her head a little, she gave him a speculative look. “He goes to the mess late at night when he can't sleep, Colonel, if you're up, too. He's been good company for me when I can't stand to stay in bed.”

Getting to her feet, she said, “And speaking of sleeping, I should go and let you get some rest. Besides, I'm going down to the planet tomorrow, if the kino check comes back a go, so I should go to bed. See you tomorrow.”

He walked her to his door and she paused and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, Colonel, for looking out for _all_ of us.”

Her words warmed him long after she'd left.

* * *

He wasn't quite ready to crawl under the covers after Chloe left, so he undressed down to his boxers and a tank top and socks. Rush hadn't asked for his Ipod back yet; he snagged it from his dresser drawer, snatched the comforter off his bed, and settled on the couch with a book that he'd only read twice before. 

Drowsiness crept up on him but he was too comfortable to move. He drifted off to the low sound of accented voices and musical instruments, melodies and harmonies, and songs of the sea and the land rife with struggle and loss and love. 

 

* * *

The sound of his door opening and closing penetrated his sleep and he started to flounder awake. His lights had dimmed automatically and the ever present blue FTL light wasn't quite enough to make out who was walking toward the couch. 

“Wha?” he mumbled and untangled himself from the thick comforter. “Who?” 

That answer became evident as Rush came close enough for Everett to recognize him. He stopped his attempt to get to his feet and relaxed against the back of the couch. “Wazz the prob...?”

Rush cut him off from finishing his question by straddling his lap and kissing him, his hands framing Everett's face. 

The friction of Rush's beard against his own stubble made him doubt that he was still asleep and dreaming. No, this was real and Rush was kissing him as fervently as he'd done in the stasis pod. Everett let his mouth open, let Rush take what he wanted, because oh, god.

Rush's hands were in his hair, cupping the back of his neck and his kisses were getting god damned steamy. He was making these little moans that went straight to Everett's dick. He pulled Rush closer to him, hands slipping under his vest to feel bare, smooth skin. He could feel Rush's erection. Fuck. Why the hell was Rush doing this? Better question. Why was he going along with it?

God damn this man. He was breaking their agreement, after insisting that they not have sex, and this was not the bond, it just wasn't because he knew what that felt like and it wasn't this. 

This was Rush being contrary and oppositional even against his own damn decisions. 

He shouldn't let Rush have his way about this. He should dump his ass on the floor and tell him that Everett Young had higher standards than sleeping with him. He would work with him, he would look out for him, he would do his best to integrate Rush with the crew, but he shouldn't sleep with him. He was better than than that. There were some things about Rush that were just not forgivable. 

_You are better than this, Young,_ he told himself again, and made a real effort to pull his mouth away from Rush's.

Only to have Rush attack his neck, sucking, licking, and fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He grabbed Rush's hair at his nape and bunched it in his hand. If he yanked hard he could force Rush away from him .

He didn't do that. Instead he loosened his hold and ran fingers through Rush's hair. 

So maybe he wasn't better than this. Maybe he didn't have to forgive Rush in order to fuck him. Was this any worse than crawling into a bottle? And screw this idea that the bond would flare up. If it hadn't started sizzling now, then the thing was well and truly dead.

So Rush wanted sex, did he? And he couldn't just act like a normal person and talk to him, explain that he'd changed his mind, go out for drinks together, or play a game of chess, or even just go to the observation deck and talk, no, fucking Rush had to sneak into his quarters and jump him, and not say a god damn word about what he wanted. Everett was hard, so damn hard, and what would it hurt to teach Rush a lesson about breaking the rules. Make him wait for what he wanted until Everett was satisfied.

Rush was holding onto him like a drowning person, but Everett used that by rolling his own body to the side and flipping Rush onto his back, laying him down on the couch. It was awkward and he nearly slid down to the floor, but Rush didn't fight being maneuvered and he regained lost ground.

He dropped on top of Rush, the comforter partly under Rush's thin body. His vest had fallen open, and Everett sucked a nipple into his mouth and Rush's hips jerked up and he moaned. Oh, yes, Rush thought he'd come in here and just grab Everett to scratch an itch that he knew had been building up in the other man – the memory of how he had plastered himself to Everett when he thought Everett had been asleep flooded through his mind – but Everett wasn't going to be so accommodating.

He could just wait while Everett played with him. And maybe, he wouldn't even let him come. Strip him naked. Get him so aroused that he would be cursing and begging, that accent of his slurring with his need, and Everett would hold his hands down and just watch him. 

It always came back to watching him.

Rush would try to move his hips but Everett would keep him still, his heavier weight pinning him, but not touching the man's pretty dick. He would lick everywhere he could reach on Rush's body, except for where Rush most wanted him to do it.

He wondered if Rush would get so frustrated that he would cry. Everett would lick those tears from his cheeks.

If Rush begged nicely, maybe he'd relent. Maybe he'd blow on his dick, or suck it into his mouth and Rush would explode into an incoherent mess.

That would be satisfying to see. 

He'd evaluate all the options and wait until he had all the data he needed to decide what to do with Rush.

Switching to the other nipple, he left it a tight little nub before sitting back and opening up Rush's jeans. Rush's hands stretched out to him but he ignored that. Rush wasn't wearing any underwear and he shoved the jeans down a little and captured Rush's dick with his hand before stretching out on top of him again. He lost track of time, but between the nipple play and the kissing, and palming and rolling Rush's dick around, the man started to pant heavily, trying to jerk his hips up but Everett's heavier build kept Rush pinned down and frustrated as Everett moved against him. 

That went straight to his own dick. They had all night to do this. And he was so ready to come. By the time he had Rush ready to beg for it, he'd be rock hard again. 

So he indulged himself and sat up, one leg on the floor, the other knee between Rush and the couch back, and said, “Watch me.”

Rush wiggled underneath Everett's ass, but Everett wasn't having that, so he lifted himself up a little bit more and Rush whined when he was denied any friction. Freeing his dick from his raggedy boxers, Everett chuckled. “Hang on, and maybe you'll get your turn.”

He stroked himself, and then he took Rush's left hand and made him hold onto Everett's erection. Rush was willing, he didn't pull away but he didn't take any initiative either to bring Everett off.

That was all right. Everett had enough initiative for the both of them. He was slick now and he wrapped a hand around Rush's and together their hands rose and fell; he knew he wasn't going to last long and Rush kept wiggling under him, but he was looking at the ceiling, not Everett, and that kind of pissed him off. 

“Rush, god damn it, you started this, you can damn well see it through.”

He felt it coming, like an ice dam breaking with a powerful rush of water and he slid further back until he was partly sitting on Rush's thighs. He said Rush's name again and stiffened, and then he came all over Rush's jeans and dick and belly and vest. God, it had been forever and it felt so fucking good.

He shuddered through the last echoes of his orgasm, as he slowly worked his dick, with Rush's hand still there.

Looking down at Rush, he saw that he wasn't looking at Everett. His gaze was still upward, still avoiding any eye contact.

“What?” He tried to make the word come out with a snap, but he felt too relaxed for that. “Feeling shy, are you? I wanted to make you wait to come, but oh hell. Maybe next time.”

Rush's erection was jutting out of his dirty jeans. Everett wrapped Rush's lax hand around it. “Go on. I want to watch.”

Rush didn't start to stroke himself, but he didn't let go either. He wiggled some more though and Everett grinned. So Rush wanted Everett to help him get off. Seemed fair. 

“You know you're a lot of work, don't you?” he said, but instead of the usual exasperation he felt when he said that, he felt almost fond of Rush. Contrary bastard that he was. Why the hell had he changed his mind about sex with Everett? But this was no time for second thoughts. He'd fallen off the wagon already and he might as well have fun with this before his better judgment slapped him upside the head about that whole _you don't have to forgive him to fuck him_ business.

He moved their hands slowly, glacially slowly, and Rush started pumping his hips in frustration, accompanied by a whine of desperation. God, he was enjoying this. Next time, he'd wait till Rush was wailing for completion or cursing him and then he'd suck him off. Rush would be totally wrecked when he did that, limp and pliant, and Everett would sweep him into his lap again and Rush would just curl up bonelessly and let Everett pet him.

But not this time. He wanted to pull Rush up and strip his dirty clothes off him and move them to the bed. 

He concentrated on the head of Rush's dick, thumbing it and circling the ridge of flesh and Rush was so slippery and wet and hard.

Grinning, he decided to start calling Rush endearments, knowing that would annoy the hell out of the other man, but he would be too close to coming to argue or push Everett's hand away and Everett was really looking forward to seeing Rush's peeved expression taken over by his orgasm. He'd be stunned and annoyed and grateful and exasperated and stuttering trying to say “Colonel” in that admonishing way of his before his language skills dropped down to only groans and grunts as his come spurted from him. 

“Let's try out some pet names for you.” Positioning Rush's hand below his, he swirled his thumb again around the slit while saying “baby.” 

Next, he crooned, “honey” and Rush jerked as Everett repeated swirling his thumb. He followed that with “sweetheart, love, sugar, cutie-pie, and darling, with Rush pumping his hips in time to the slew of names Everett gave him.

He was watching Rush's expression, waiting for him to break from that almost placid look to annoyed, to stop watching the ceiling and glare at him, and Rush wasn't cooperating. 

Big surprise.

It wasn't until he called him, “pretty boy” that he started to feel a twinge of something not being right. Rush just wasn't that good at not reacting to things. His ability to ignore what Everett was saying should have been exhausted by now.

“Rush?” he said, a little tentatively. And damn it, Rush still wasn't making eye contact.

Like he'd been waiting for his cue, Rush's orgasm tore through him, come spurting out over Everett's hand, and falling down on Rush's belly. 

“There you go,” Everett murmured to him, pushing Rush's hand away and slowly, firmly using his hand to make Rush experience the sensitive after orgasm shudders that were so exquisite and almost painful. 

Rush had arched his back as he came, staying stiff and taut until Everett had wrung the last shudder and groan from him. Then he collapsed. Smiling at him, because he fucking couldn't help it, Everett wiped his hand clean on Rush's jeans and vest. 

Getting to his feet, Everett looked down at Rush, eyes half lidded, all debauched and dirty, hair tousled and in his eyes, and thought he looked beautiful. 

Doing this had been a bad decision, but... it had been the best of the bad decisions that he could have made. 

_Really, Young,”_ an inner, skeptical voice shouted at him. _You think being lovers with Rush is going to change him in any way, stop him from advocating for decisions that mean people will be lost or dead, or make him feel empathy for Malin or the crew? News flash, you idiot. It won't. Will it mean he thinks he has something on you now, some edge where he thinks you're going to do what he asks? Almost certainly. Best of the bad decisions, my ass. This was the worst decision, and you know it._

 _Shut up,_ he told the voice of his second thoughts. _So what if he always gives me the hard decisions to consider. They need to be considered, damn it. I won't go that way if there's a chance I don't have to, but he's not wrong to bring them up. I know him, okay? Just because he considers the entire range of solutions to problems doesn't mean he likes or enjoys them. If everyone else mentioned the most difficult decisions first, the ones where the greater good is considered at the expense of some lives lost, I think he'd bring up solutions that could avoid that. And he's got his faults, but maybe I can just learn to live with them. It's not like I'm a prize, either. And he's not going to blackmail me into letting him do whatever the hell he wants so that he won't out us. Of the two of us, I'd say he'd be the one to want to keep things quiet. I really don't care if the crew or Homeworld Command knows._

His second thoughts gave a mental snort. _Telford will use it against you. He's digging through the archives and if he comes across the information Eli did, he's going to make a case that you're compromised._

 _I'll cross that bridge when we come to it. He'd have to prove my decisions have been influenced by Rush to the detriment of the crew. And that's not ever going to happen. So go back to the depths of my subconscious and chill out._

Rush murmuring brought his attention back to the couch. He was trying to sit up, and Everett grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. His unfastened jeans slid lower and Everett stopped them. 

“You might as well wait to get undressed in the bathroom. You're a mess.” Rush did nothing to fix his jeans and Everett tugged on them a little. “Guess your brain is still off line, Ace. Pull up your jeans.” He looked Rush over. His hair had fallen over his eyes and his feet were bare. Everett smirked at him. “You look good in just your jeans and vest.” He didn't think he'd ever seen Rush without a shirt, though, unless he was in the infirmary and unconscious.

He waited for Rush to snark at him for giving him a compliment. Rush said something again, a little louder. In Ancient. He didn't touch his jeans. Rolling his eyes, Everett said, “The things I do for you. Here.” Everett yanked his jeans back up but only fastened the button. “Rush, why are you talking in Ancient? That's an odd choice for bedroom talk.”

Rush didn't answer him. Instead he wrapped himself around Everett, arms around his neck, and laid his head on his shoulder. Sighing deeply, he started talking again in Ancient. Everett hugged him back but when he tried to gently move them apart, Rush clung to him like a limpet.

“Who would have guessed that you'd be such a cuddler, Doctor Rush,” he said wryly. “C'mon. Let's get you cleaned up so we can start round two. And what the hell are you yakking about? I've caught a few words and they aren't very relative here.” He thought Rush had muttered something about Destiny and the stargate. He'd caught “porta” anyway, and astria porta meant stargate.

He broke Rush's hold on him and held him at arm's length. Rush was speaking in Ancient still. “English, Rush. I don't know what you're saying.”

Rush wasn't looking at him; he was looking past him and Everett frowned. He pulled Rush along with him over to the bathroom and the brighter light illuminated Rush's face. His expression was that blank, placid look again, his eyes glazed over. Everett shook him a little. “Rush, hey, pay attention here. C'mon, look at me. You're out in space and you need to focus up.”

He snapped his fingers in front of Rush's eyes and all he did was blink very slowly. “Oh, crap. Something's wrong with you.” He dragged him to his bed and made him sit down. He repeated his attempts to bring him out of his fugue state but it was useless. 

He radioed TJ.

* * *

TJ finished her examination and put her pen light and blood pressure cuff and ear thermometer back in her bag. She patted Rush on his knee and looked up at Everett from where she sat next to Rush on the bed. Her expression was bleak. “He's sleepwalking. This is my fault, Colonel. I stopped by his quarters after you radioed me, and he'd done as I asked. He drank the sleep medicine I left for him. He told me he would after Matt's briefing, when I asked him if he'd slept when I sent him to his quarters. He told me he had for maybe a half hour, then he had another nightmare and couldn't go back to sleep.”

“So, what? This is a side effect of that medicine?” He glanced down at Rush, alarmed that he still wasn't tracking anything of this conversation. How the fuck could he have missed that Rush wasn't really with it when he landed on Everett's lap. _Because you were willing to just take what he was offering you without looking too hard at why, afraid he'd change his mind, and you've wanted him ever since the stasis pod._ his annoying better judgment chimed in.

“I think so,” TJ said tightly. “Some sleep medicines have been known to cause sleepwalking in some individuals. And he was so exhausted, that probably played a part, from what I know of complications from sedative-hypnotics.”

“Is he going to be okay?” She nodded. He asked, perplexed, “How could he manage to get out of his room without walking into his own door?” 

“There have been cases of people getting in their cars and driving, fixing entire meals, doing complex tasks, and initiating sex, all while having no idea of what they were doing.” She dropped her eyes and he knew that the state of Rush's jeans and vest hadn't escaped her notice, even with the hasty cleanup he'd performed. Not to mention that the room smelled like they'd had sex. Oh, god.

“He's really asleep? Even with his eyes open?”

“Yes. He's not going to have any memories of being here,” she said, her expression comforting, like she was offering him a way out of this clusterfuck.

“I'll remember, though,” he said woodenly. 

TJ sighed. “If you'll help me walk him to the infirmary, I'll restrain him on a gurney. He won't be going anywhere else tonight.” She scrubbed at her eyes, but he knew it wasn't from her own tiredness. From the set of her mouth, she was close to tears. “I should have taken into consideration his past reactions to sedatives. He shouldn't have woken up during his chest surgery, either.”

“Has anybody else had this same reaction?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I've used it for at least four months with no problems before we entered stasis. He's the first to react like this, but like I said, he's had atypical reactions before to medications. I should have insisted that he sleep in the infirmary where he could be monitored.”

“TJ...” he said slowly, and waited till she stopped looking down at her hands, her eyes locking with his. “I know you've figured out that we had sex. I didn't realize he was out of it when he came into the room. Are you _sure_ that he didn't know what was going on?” He wanted to slam his hand against a wall; he wanted someone to hit him so hard he saw stars. “He was so insistent.”

Rush chose that moment to get up again from the bed and like a moth to a flame, came straight to Everett and put his arms around his neck again and swayed. Everett put an arm around his back, to keep him balanced.

“I'm sorry, Everett,” TJ said, sympathy heavy in her voice. “He really doesn't know what he's doing. He couldn't give consent.”

Everett felt a low roil in his belly and hoped to hell he wasn't going to throw up. “That makes me a rapist, then. God, TJ. I never, never would have let him start things up with us if I'd known.”

“Of course not, Everett. The way I see this, you're a victim, too. You weren't at fault. I was. This is on me.” He saw a tear slip down her cheek.

“I should have questioned him,” he said grimly. “You know, thinking back, he never said a god-damn word, not until he started babbling in Ancient and by that time it was too late. I should have made him tell me why he'd changed his mind, instead of just...”

“Everett, I need to know some things.” She wiped her face and her voice firmed, “For medical reasons, you understand?”

He nodded and Rush relaxed even more into his arms and laid his head on Everett's shoulder. He didn't push him back down on the bed, although touching Rush right now seemed wrong. This wasn't Rush's fault, and he wanted comfort. Or whatever part of his mind that was working right now did. This was the punishment Everett deserved, having to hold him now, knowing that the trust Rush had allowed himself to feel towards him would be gone when he truly woke up.

TJ cleared her throat. “Was there any penetration? Including with fingers?”

“No,” he said, thinking, thank god for at least that. Compelled to be honest, he added, “I probably would have, given more time, if I hadn't finally realized something was wrong. He would have let me. God, TJ. I don't know what I'm going to say to him. How can I apologize for something like this?”

She gave him her professional look of comfort. “It's hard to say how he'll react, but I can tell him after he wakes up.”

“No. I should do it. It's the right thing to do.” No hiding behind TJ's skirts on this. He deserved everything Rush might say.

She nodded, and the look she shot at him told him she was well aware that he wanted Rush to hurt him over this. Hell, he'd stand still and let the man belt him with all he had. “Everett, what about the bond. Did you feel any sense of compulsion at all?”

Ah. TJ was offering him an excuse. He wouldn't take it. “Not even a twinge. I know the difference, and I'm not feeling anything now, either.” He made a sound that started out as a bitter laugh but ended up in a sob. He tightened his hold on the man in arms. Rush was entirely innocent, for once, and Everett had... He swallowed hard and answered TJ. “Rush was sure that if we had sex together that it would trigger the bond into really connecting us. I guess he was wrong about that.”

“Or, the fact that he's in a sleep state prevented the bond from forming. We just don't know enough to say for sure.” She put one hand on her bag, grasping the straps.

“TJ, why can't we wake him up? Should we be worried about that?”

“He'll wake up when he's ready. His vitals are okay. We just have to wait him out. Everett?” She looked at him carefully, assessing him, saying his first name like it was balm to lay on his pain. “Are there any bites, scrapes, bruises that I should treat? I've examined what I can see, but...?”

“No. We weren't rough,” he said quietly, feeling like absolute shit. Rush muttered several phrases in Ancient.

TJ looked interested. “I caught some of that. He said 'machinus' and 'domatauu' and 'motabilu.'”

He seized on that interest like a life line. “It's just nonsense words? Or does that make sense to you?” 

“It's hard to say, really,” she said tiredly. “He could just be pulling random words from his brain, or this might be something he's been thinking about or working on. I've improved my Ancient since Volker's kidney surgery, Lisa really helped me with that, but Doctor Rush speaks and reads and writes it on an entirely different level. And Ancient is tricky because changing the position of the word or a different inflection changes the meaning.”

“What did you make out from what he said?” Everett asked, grateful for anything that would let him not think for a moment about what he had done.

TJ played along, thank god. “I think he said something about 'the machine, master or maybe mastery, and time.”

Rush started muttering again and TJ stood up and moved close to them, bag in hand.

“He repeated those words again, and this time I caught 'admonito', which means 'a warning' and 'clavia,' that means, I think, 'key' and 'disce,' that's 'learn', and he said 'time door?' or maybe the 'door of time?' It was 'porta' something 'motabilu.' Colonel, we should get him to the infirmary.” She stifled a yawn.

“TJ, he hates being restrained. I think it's because of Kiva and the Nakai, and that can't possibly help with this nightmare problem he's having. Look, you said he's not in any need of medical care, right?” He didn't want to push dealing with the aftermath of this on her. This was his fault; he would take care of Rush.

“He's stable. That's not likely to change.” 

“You're dead on your feet. How about I keep him here for the rest of the night?” He looked at her pleadingly. She could over ride him.

“Colonel, I don't mind...” she started, but he interrupted her.

“Look at the way he's clinging to me. This must be something he wants, being so close. I don't think he'll try to wander off, but I'll push the tables in front of the door, put some things on them that will clatter and wake me up, if I doze off and he tries to leave.”

She thought about it, and then nodded. “I'm sure Doctor Rush would prefer to avoid the infirmary, if he could. Colonel, let him wake up on his own. If he misses the gate mission, then so be it. And I want to see him when he's conscious. Radio me, all right.”

“You got it, TJ. Now go. Get some rest.” He gently moved Rush away from him and back down on the bed. “One last thing, though. You said sleepwalkers sometimes actually drive, stuff like that?”

“Yes. It's been well documented.”

“I need to contact the bridge. Let's make sure that Rush came straight here and didn't go changing anything, like where the hell we're going.” The thought of Rush sleep driving the ship made him cringe.

“Who's in charge tonight?” she asked thoughtfully. “I think we should be discreet about explaining this.”

“Volker is.” Rush tried to get up; he put a hand on his shoulder, not forcefully, just a suggestion that he stay put.

“Colonel, I'll stop there and just explain that Rush was found sleepwalking. Find out if he came to the bridge or the control interface room.”

“Tell Volker you spoke with me and I said to run a shipwide diagnostic. Let's make sure he didn't pop into some lab and meddle with anything.” He grimaced at the thought. 

“Yes, sir. And sir, this wasn't your fault.” She dropped her bag on the floor, caught his hand and squeezed it. She looked worried to him and it didn't take a genius to figure out why.

“It's okay, TJ. I'm not going to hit the bottle to deal with this.” He let go of Rush and turned to her. 

She squared her shoulders. “Tell Doctor Rush that it was my fault, and I'm taking full responsibility.”

He shook his head. “This wasn't your fault. You did your best. You can't know everything about the medicines you've cobbled together. And a four month trial without any one else having problems, well, it was reasonable to expect Rush would be okay with taking it.” 

“Well, it's the last time I give him something and let him stay by himself. From now on, he's going to have to stay in the infirmary.” She sounded really determined about that and despite the awfulness of everything he couldn't help picturing the epic battle of wills coming in the future over this. 

“He's going kick up a fuss,” he warned.

TJ crossed her arms over her chest. “I can handle him.”

“I owe him.” He raised his eyebrows, wondering if Rush would find him the lesser of two evils. “Maybe he can stay with me again, if he needs to be watched.”

“We'll talk about that later." She glanced down at Rush. “See if you can keep him in bed. That might help him shift back to a normal sleep pattern.”

As if hearing his name was a signal, Rush got off the bed again and this time Everett caught his hands. “I'm going to...” and he nodded towards the bathroom. Rush's clothes were trashed. Everett only had one pair of boxers, and he was wearing them still under the black trousers he'd pulled on before TJ arrived. But Rush could wear his clean black T-shirt to bed. It would be big on him, probably have to roll up the sleeves a little, but it would be better for him to wake up with some clothes on. And he needed to be washed up much better. Everett didn't want him to find come on his body in the morning, although most of it had been hastily wiped off earlier. 

Picking up her bag again, TJ walked to the door and looked out cautiously before saying, “Good night, sir.” She stepped out and closed the door.

He pulled Rush to him then and hugged him hard. Rush was pliant against him, and made a contented sound. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You trust me to protect you and look at what I did. I'm sorry, Nicholas.” He teared up, thinking, _I raped you. There is no excuse for what happened here. It doesn't matter that you won't remember anything about it. I'll remember for us both.”_

 

* * *


	16. Perchance to Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made changes in the tags. There is a brief description of the start of a sexual assault in this chapter.
> 
> My thanks go to Fragged for letting me vent about my writing woes and giving me feedback. I really appreciate it and I'm sorry this note slipped my mind till the next day, which is why it's appearing late.

**Rush's Quarters. Destiny**

“Colonel?”

Rush's voice broke through the dream he'd been having, something about making a split second decision to jump from an old tramp steamer in distress during a tropical storm into a waiting lifeboat. He'd looked back up to see the crew he'd deserted staring down at him in condemnation and disgust and regretted with all his heart what he'd done. 

“Colonel, you need to wake up and talk to me.”

Somehow he knew that the ship wouldn't break up and sink in that storm, that his actions could not be justified, that he'd made a horrible mistake and that he would never forgive himself. Because he hadn't checked, he hadn't realized what the situation with the ship really was; he'd just... jumped. 

“Colonel?” He opened his eyes, feeling Rush's hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently.

“Why are you here, in my quarters?” Rush plucked at the loose long sleeved black T-shirt Everett had exchanged for Rush's dirty vest. “Is this yours? 

Everett nodded, his mouth going dry. Fiercely telling himself to get it together, he carefully slid his most stoic expression into place. He needed it to hold back the flood of emotions that threatened to break through as he steeled himself to answer Rush's questions and explain what had happened last night. 

Rush was looking at him with puzzled eyes, but he was relaxed, calm. So he didn't remember. TJ had said he wouldn't. 

“Are you alright, then?” Rush was crouching next to him but when Everett nodded he gracefully stood and extended a hand down. “I think you'd best explain ye'self, Colonel.”

Wanting to take Rush's hand, he instead pushed himself up from where he'd been sitting in front of Rush's door. It didn't feel right to let Rush help him or touch him. But he'd let the man belt him as much as he liked, once he knew the truth.

Glancing at Rush, he went to parade rest. Rush raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting, a concerned look replacing his slightly bewildered expression.

His voice rough, Everett said, “Something happened last night. Something that shouldn't have happened and before I explain, I want to say that I'm sorry. I would give anything to be able to change what I did to you.”

Rush said quietly, “And what did happen, Colonel? I remember taking Lieutenant Johansen's sleep brew and being in my bed. I woke there minutes ago, wearing your shirt.”

“That medicine made you sleepwalk. That, and being so exhausted, TJ said.” Everett clenched his hands behind his back.

“I did what?” Rush looked incredulous. 

“Sleepwalked. Don't worry, we can't find anything you did to mess up the ship,” Everett threw in, figuring the ship would be Rush's first concern. 

“You're sure?” Rush said urgently.

“Yeah, Volker did a systems scan.”

“Volker?” Rush made a sour expression. “I'll do my own, then, to make sure.” He eyed Everett. “So, you brought me back and stood guard? In case I tried to leave the room?”

“Yeah. But you came to my quarters first. Woke me up from where I'd fallen asleep on the couch. I didn't know you were sleepwalking, and you, uh, you climbed on my lap and started kissing me...” Everett took in the alarmed look on Rush's face and decided to just plow ahead. If Rush wanted details, he'd give them to him, but he thought Rush wouldn't really want to know.

Taking a deep breath, wishing he could go back through time and make a different choice, Everett said, “I thought you'd changed your mind about being with me. I was stupid, criminally irresponsible, and didn't ask you to talk about it.”

“What?” Rush said, low and questioning, like Everett's words were simply not comprehensible. 

“I fucked up, Nicholas. I guess I saw what I wanted to see.” Everett forced himself to look directly at the other man. “To be honest, I was afraid I'd give you second thoughts if I asked you about why you decided to have sex with me.”

Rush's eyes had widened and he put a closed fist up to his mouth, then seemed to shake off his reaction and stared at Young hard, re-crossing his arms over his chest. “Go on,” he snapped.

“So we had sex and it wasn't until we were done that I finally realized you weren't yourself. I called TJ. She checked you over, and said you were sleepwalking.” Everett gave a vague wave towards Rush. “Your clothes were trashed, that's why you've got my shirt on. She said you should go back to bed, that maybe that would help you return to normal sleep. I brought you back here and sat with you. You, uh, wanted me to be close. Once you were back to really sleeping again, I parked myself in front of the door in case you tried to get out again.”

Rush closed his eyes. He tightened his arms around himself, his shoulders hunching, his slightly defiant posture sliding into something protective and self-comforting.

His breathing becoming more rapid, Rush said, “I don't feel the bond.”

“I don't either,” Everett confirmed, knowing he should feel relieved. He wasn't though. He just felt like crap. “Maybe because you were in a sleep state, it didn't happen.”

“Well, I suppose that's something.” Rush started trembling. His eyes opened, and they were wet. “Did you fuck me? Did I act the slut for you? Fucking tell me, you bastard!”

“Hand jobs,” Everett said quickly. “And no, you didn't. You just wanted affection.”

“Affection,” Rush choked out, sounding lost and appalled.

Moving his hands into a conciliatory, calming gesture Everett said, “Whatever retribution you want, it's yours. I'll report myself to O'Neill, to the IOA.”

“You'll fucking keep your mouth shut, is what you'll do. And you won't ever talk to me about this again.” Rush ran a shaky hand through his hair.

“Rush, TJ knows.” Carefully, softly, he said, “You should talk to someone about this. Use the stones or talk to Camile or TJ or somebody who can help you out.” 

“No.”

“I fucked up, Nicholas. I want to make things right for you.”

“I suppose you made sure I came too,” Rush said, anger and hurt coloring the words he hissed at Everett. “Two pals giving each other a hand in the night, aye? No big deal, Colonel.” His actions belayed his words because he started to pace, his arms waving in the air as his voice became louder. 

Everett shook his head. “You were asleep. You couldn't give consent. And because I ignored all the things that any reasonable person would have checked about, I raped you. You've said all along you didn't want to be lovers and I just accepted that you changed your mind, but I never asked you to say why. You weren't even talking, not really.”

“What I want and what you want doesn't matter. We _can't_ , Colonel.” Rush threw his hands up, his body shaking, his eyes brimming and overflowing. 

Everett fucking hated himself. “You want to hit me, go ahead. I won't stop you. I told you I wouldn't hurt you again and then I--” He gave up trying to be stoic; the tears he'd forced back escaped to run down his face, cold and burning against his skin. 

“I came to you!” Rush almost screamed the words. “I. Came to _you._ You were an idiot, true, but I came to you, Colonel; I came to you!”

Rush charged towards him, but veered to the side and instead started pounding on the wall with a fist, bellowing in anger or frustration or pain. Everett caught his hand and stopped him, moving him away from the wall. “Christ, Rush! Hit me in the gut or something. You'll break your hand doing that.”

Rush struggled against him and Everett let him go, watching him warily. 

Glaring at him, Rush yelled, “You couldn't even tell the difference between me being awake or asleep? You're no a rapist, Colonel Young; but you're as dense as Destiny's hull!”

“Hit me, then. I deserve it.”

Panting, Rush lowered his voice. “You'll not get your absolution that way from me.” His eyes skimmed the small room and found Everett's spare pants on the desk chair. He turned his back and snatched them up, quickly pulled them up over his boxers. They were a little long, and Rush stared down at them for a long moment as if they were a problem he didn't know how to fix. 

Last night Everett had brought the extra pants with him and had helped Rush to undress from his dirty jeans and slip on the boxers he'd found on Rush's chair. After TJ had left Rush in his care last night, he'd decided it would be better for Rush to wake up in his own bed and had radioed her with the update. 

Rush wiped the wetness off his face with both hands and rolled up his trousers. “Leave me alone today, Colonel. Don't come looking for me, don't send a kino after me, or Eli or Chloe to spy on me.” Picking up his belt from where it had fallen to the floor, he threaded it through the black uniform trouser loops, yanking it snug viciously. 

“Are you done hitting walls?” Everett said, and dragged his jacket sleeve over his eyes, regaining control. 

Rush gave him a curt nod. 

“I get that you need space, and I'll run interference for you, but... just.” He let all the concern he felt show on his face. “Nothing dangerous, okay? Not alone.”

Rush looked away, hands opening and closing, then nodded again and said, “Yes, yes.” He reached for his radio and held it up for a moment so Everett would get the message, then fastened it to his belt. He grabbed socks and boots and sat on the bed, pulling them on, eyes cast down. “You want to make things right with me, then don't talk to O'Neill, Colonel. I've no desire to be seen as a victim by Homeworld Command. And I won't let you give Telford a reason to replace you.” He sighed. “Talk to Camile, if you must.”

Still not making eye contact with him, Rush walked toward the door.

“Nicholas.”

Stopping, Rush waited, angled away so that Everett couldn't see his eyes. 

“Are you going to be okay?”

Rush shrugged. “O' course.”

“You sure?”

Pushing up his too long sleeves, Rush sighed. “Well, I can always tell myself that you at least thought I wanted to have sex with you. It's not like you slipped something in my drink and fucked me in a van and threw me out in an alley, now is it? I'll be fine, Colonel. Just, give me today to myself.”

“Okay.” He felt miserable and he was glad of it. It was what he deserved. Rush's words caught at him; had that happened to him, or was he just comparing various forms of rape? But he wouldn't ask him. During those long hours while he'd watched Rush sleep he'd done a lot of thinking. He was done prying information out of Rush, unless the crew's safety was at risk. 

Rush hit the door control and waited until it was open before saying, “I'll be in the engineering station I used during the mutiny or on deck seven, fixing conduit.”

Straightening his shoulders, he strode out.

Without looking at Everett.

* * *

 

Leaving Rush's quarters, he walked slowly to the bridge. The dim lights had brightened for their simulated daytime, but he found himself wishing the corridor had stayed semi-dark. He looked up when Volker called his name and stopped. The other man looked tired, his curly hair disheveled, his dress shirt a little rucked up, like he'd been stretching. 

“Colonel. Just wanted to let you know I ran those scans you asked for again, just to verify the results. We're good. How's Rush?” Everett decided not to tell Volker that Rush didn't trust his work and was going to check out Destiny's systems himself. Volker should have been off shift a while ago. Staying to double check his earlier scans had been good of him. 

“He's okay.” What a lie, Everett thought. “He's got some things to work on alone, so unless we've got a problem only he can solve, let's cut him a break and not pester him.”

“Right.” Volker drew the word out and gave him a rueful look. “He's going to run scans himself, isn't he?”

“I appreciate what you did, Doctor Volker. Get some sleep.” He made himself give Volker a friendly slap on the arm. 

“Yeah, I'm headed to bed. Colonel, you look like you didn't get much sleep yourself. Nothing's going on, you know. It's dead quiet on board. Why don't you get some rest?”

Everett just gave him a tight smile. “Yeah. That sounds good.”

“Okay.” Volker stifled a yawn. “See you later.” He gave Everett a half smile before walking away. 

When Everett walked onto the bridge, Eli was sitting in the command chair. “Hey,” he chirped. “Colonel, want the chair?”

Everett waved him off. He looked around and saw that Brody and Greer and James were there with Eli. “I'm not staying. Rush has cleared it with me to do some work on his own; so unless there's an emergency, don't radio him or go bother him.”

“Volker told us,” Eli said. “Jeez, Rush sleepwalking through the ship, there's a scary thought.”

“It was a reaction to medication. He'll be monitored if he takes it again. Guys.” Everett made sure he made eye contact with everyone on the bridge. “Give him a break on this one, okay? Keep what happened to yourselves.”

“Yes, sir,” both James and Greer responded. Brody gave him a nod. 

“Um, yeah, I kind of made Volker tell me why he was running those scans. He told us, but said to keep it quiet,” Eli said, more subdued. “Rush, he's, ah, probably not doing so well about it, is he?”

Everett looked at him tiredly but stayed silent. 

“I'll just be over here, then, you know, working.” Eli added, in a slightly sing-song lilt, “Shutting up now.”

“I'll be in my quarters. Lieutenant Scott's on duty; I'd also appreciate not being disturbed unless there's an emergency,” Everett said, and freed his radio. He thumbed the button and moved back into the corridor. 

“Wray, this is Young.”

Camile's voice answered. “This is Wray.”

“Could you meet me in my quarters when it's convenient?”

“Yes, Colonel. I'll be there within the hour. Wray out.”

* * *

Shutting the door to his quarters, Everett dropped heavily down on the coach. He rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands. The desire to drink till he didn't care anymore about how much he'd screwed up was building but he wasn't going to let himself off the hook that way. It would only hurt his crew if he fell down that rabbit hole again. 

He was going to ask for Camile's help. He'd decided he was going to tell her everything that had happened since he and Rush had stepped foot in that stasis pod. She'd helped him before when he was sure he was going crazy; she hadn't used any of that against him then. Maybe she'd do the same this time. And if she didn't... It was no more than what he deserved.

He waited for her until his eyes shut of their own volition, and he slumped backwards, slumber stealing him away.

 

* * * 

The sound of his door opening and closing penetrated his sleep and he started to flounder awake. His lights had dimmed automatically and the ever present blue FTL light wasn't quite enough to make out who was walking toward the couch. 

He started to struggle out of the blanket that was tangled around him, then relaxed when the figure came closer. “Rush,” he yawned. He knew it wasn't an emergency since his radio had stayed silent. “There a problem?” he slurred. Rush's Ipod was still on the table where he'd left it, next to the book he'd been reading before falling asleep. He plucked it up to look at the time and groaned. “It's the middle of the night, this couldn't wait till mornin--”

Climbing onto the couch, Rush straddled Everett, settling on his lap. He slid a hand into Everett's hair, fingers gripping curls tightly while kissing him with reckless abandonment. Taken off guard, Everett put an arm around him, pulling him closer and kissing him back. He felt half asleep, like this was a dream, or he was experiencing a strange sort of deja vu. He was uneasy and confused, like there was something just out of his grasp. 

Rush's lips were soft, his mouth tasted sweet and tangy, but odd, like cough syrup... like medicine.

Horror struck, he pushed Rush away from him and started shaking as a cascade of memories flooded him. Rush batted ineffectively at Everett's arm with a sound of frustration and kept trying to press back against him. 

This had happened last night. The door opening and Rush sleepwalking right into his quarters. The sex they'd had. The fucking awful mistakes he'd made because he...

He struggled to get up but Rush wasn't budging and the blanket was still tangled around his legs.

“Rush?” Why had he come back after what had happened? What was happening? Was this a dream? What was real? Rush felt real, his weight solid against him, his hair falling over his face. Oh, God, Camile must be on her way. “Rush, why? After what I did, why?”

Not answering, Rush just kept trying to wiggle towards him. Had he fallen asleep after leaving Everett this morning and started sleepwalking again? Had he decided that this was what he really wanted, to be with Everett? 

Dream or real, he wasn't going to make the same mistake again.

“No. We're not doing this. Not again.” Everett freed his other hand from the blanket so he could grip Rush with both hands on his upper arms. “Get up and talk to me.”

Rush didn't and Everett planted his feet on the floor and rolled them so that Rush was under him on the couch and was hit with another strong feeling that this had happened before. Rush managed to kiss his neck before Everett was able to get to his feet. 

Staggering for a few steps before getting his balance, he hauled Rush up by his arms and pulled him over to the bathroom, where the lights were brightest. Rush didn't resist, although he stumbled as Everett yanked him along. 

He was desperate to get a good look at him because he still wasn't talking, not even to protest being manhandled. 

Everett's heart was beating too fast, his breathing loud in the quiet of the room. He'd once accidentally taken LSD and the uncertainty of what was real and not real as the drug began to influence his mind, he felt that way now. He fucking didn't know what was real because Rush wasn't wearing the black T-shirt and trousers he'd dressed in this morning; he was barefoot, wearing his jeans and only his vest. They looked clean, other than some dirt marks on the knees and... Oh, maybe. He pulled the unbuttoned vest off of Rush and looked more closely at a dried white smear, then brought it to his face and inhaled.

It only smelled like Rush, and chalk. 

He dropped the vest on the floor and turned Rush's face upwards, towards the light. His eyes were glazed, blank. Everett shook him, just a little and Rush's expression didn't change, his eyes didn't sharpen. 

Leaving Rush standing there swaying, he found his radio on the desk and called TJ. 

 

* * *

Once again, the sound of his door whirring open caught his attention; he let go of Rush, stepping a few feet away. To keep Rush from trying to kiss him – because even asleep he was as determined as ever – he'd spun him into a mild restraint, Everett's crossed arms holding Rush's back against him, his hands around Rush's thin wrists. He couldn't turn around that way but the close contact with Everett had seemed to satisfy him and he'd been content.

But if this wasn't TJ or Camile, his visitor didn't need to see that. Besides, if it was TJ, he wanted her to see how Rush acted without being held. 

“Sir?” TJ's hair was down, her voice sleep roughened as she waited in the quiet, dim corridor. 

“Close the door, TJ.” 

She dropped her bag on the bed and got out a penlight. “Is it you or Doctor Rush?” 

“Rush. I'm not sure what's going on.” And that was the truth. Was he dreaming right now, his guilt making him relive last night, but doing it right this time? Or was what he remembered the dream? An unusually vivid and coherent dream that began the same way, with Rush coming into his room and trying to kiss him. Not a normal dream, with weird shit popping in and out. He clenched his hands remembering another time when he'd been trapped in relentless dreams. 

_Oh, no, no, no. Not again, not fucking again,_ Everett thought, cold sweat breaking out on his skin,

“Doctor Rush, look at me.” TJ frowned and moved sideways so she could check Rush's pupils. Rush was looking at him, not her.

Destiny could be orchestrating this. When he'd been in the simulation before, he couldn't tell he was actually dreaming. Not until he would wake up, shaken and sweaty and convinced he was losing his mind.

TJ was tugging at Rush, but he was trying to move towards Everett. “Sir, I could use a hand. Help me get him to sit down on the bed.”

Everett took Rush's arm and led him to the bed with no resistance; he pushed him down by his shoulders and Rush sat, still looking at Everett. He caught Everett's hand and tugged on it. 

Suddenly TJ's light was shining in his own eyes. “How are you feeling? You're pale.” She felt his forehead and startled, he stepped back from her. TJ frowned. “You're clammy. Sit down and I'll take your blood pressure, too.”

“I'm fine. Help Rush, okay?” 

TJ gave him a stern look. “Don't make me give you an order, sir. Sit down. I'm going to check both of you.” She picked up Rush's vest from the floor and threaded his arms through it and buttoned it up for him; Rush wasn't any help. 

Sighing, Everett did as she asked. Truth to tell, he did feel shaky. This was new. Or rather it wasn't new; he'd felt pretty damn shaky after the ship had put him through hell with the battle simulations, but not after having sex with Rush. So maybe he really was awake now, and that had been the dream. Or not.

She finished taking Rush's pulse and blood pressure, listened to his heart and lungs, tried to get him to follow her finger with his eyes and respond to directions. Rush ignored her throughout the medical stuff and when she wrapped the blood pressure cuff around Everett's arm, Rush scooted closer to him and tried to climb back into his lap. Well, he'd wanted TJ to see how the other man was acting. He pushed him away with his free hand and held him still. 

“Has he been like that since he entered your quarters?” TJ said, with absolutely no judgment in her voice. 

“Yes.” He hadn't decided how much to tell her. 

“I think he's sleepwalking, probably from the sleep medicine he took combined with his exhaustion, but I'd like to take him to the infirmary, see what the monitors have to say about his sleep state.”

“He--”

TJ interrupted him. “Just a moment, sir. I need you to be still and quiet while I take your readings.” She frowned when she was done taking his vitals. “I need you to come with me, too.”

“I'm sure that's not necessary, Lieutenant.” Everett nodded towards Rush. “And he despises being in the infirmary. He'd hate waking up there. I could take him to his room, keep an eye on him.”

Shaking her head, TJ said, “And who would be keeping an eye on you, Colonel? I have to insist that both of you come with me. Doctor Rush will just have to be annoyed when he wakes up.”

“TJ, really, I'm fine.” Rush wasn't the only one who hated spending time in the infirmary. 

“Not your decision, Colonel,” she said firmly. “I'm not sure why you're having these symptoms, but I'll start with treating the headache.”

He frowned. Until she'd said that, he hadn't realized that his head was pounding. Damn the ship anyway. And he guessed he'd better tell her about his difficulty with reality, and that he suspected Destiny was to blame. 

“Okay, you win.” He got to his feet, swaying a little. It had been like this before, but he'd never thought to tell TJ about the dream-simulations at the time. She steadied him with a hand at his elbow and Rush grabbed his hand, pulling himself up.

They were going to look like a cockeyed clown parade going to the infirmary with TJ holding him steady and Rush latching onto him. He hoped to hell they didn't meet any of the crew.

Sighing loudly, he said, “There's something you should know about since it might be the reason I'm like this.” He still had no clear idea if he was dreaming or not. “And I should radio Camile, tell her to meet us at the infirmary.”

TJ gave him an assessing look. “Camile and Eli are on Earth, Colonel. They used the stones yesterday and won't be back for a couple of days.”

“Are you sure?”

She grabbed her radio with her free hand. “Corporal Barnes, this is Johansen. come in.” 

Barnes' stoic voice answered her. “Barnes here.”

“Are Eli and Camile Wray still on Earth?”

“Yes, ma'am. Doctor Mehta and General Telford are on Destiny.”

“Thank you, Corporal. Johansen out.”

Everett said quietly, “I was sure I talked to Camile earlier on the radio, and I saw Eli on the bridge, but I may have been dreaming. Or maybe I'm dreaming now. I don't really know, TJ.” He reached for her radio and she passed it to him. He switched settings and said, “Bridge, report. This is Colonel Young.”

“Doctor Volker here, Colonel. It's only me right now. Everything's quiet.”

“Change to a private channel and radio me back. Young out.” Glancing at TJ, he said, “To me, Volker was on duty last night, and Greer, James, Eli, and Brody were on bridge duty when I talked to them before coming back here to wait on Camile.”

“This is Doctor Volker, are you there, Colonel?”

“This is Young. I want you to run shipwide systems scans, look for anything that might have been changed or modified, and anything that shows Destiny has been running another one of her simulations.”

“Okay. Um, why?” Volker asked. “What's going on?”

“For now, keep this private, Dale. Rush was found sleepwalking and I want to make sure he didn't do anything to the ship; he won't remember a thing when he wakes up.”

“Sleepwalking? Is he all right?” Volker sounded like he genuinely was worried, Everett thought, a little surprised. “Is he wandering around the ship still?”

“He's with TJ and me, and I think he'll be okay.” He shot TJ a quick look for confirmation and she nodded. “And I have reason to believe the ship has pulled another stunt with interfering with dreams again, so see what you can find out. Keep that to yourself, too.”

“I'm on it. Volker out.”

Shaking he head, Everett said, “When I last saw Volker, he'd already run those scans and was headed to bed.”

TJ took the radio out of his hand. “We'll get it sorted out, Colonel. I'm placing you on medical leave for now. I'll inform Scott. C'mon, let's you get you two into the infirmary.”

 

* * * 

 

TJ checked the monitors again for her two sound asleep patients, noting down the readings on her clipboard. They'd slept the morning and the early afternoon away. After locking two gurneys together, she'd pulled a curtain around them for privacy because the sight of Colonel Young curled around Doctor Rush would stop most of the crew in their tracks. In order to keep Rush still and cooperative, Young had reluctantly laid down next to him. Neither she nor the Colonel had wanted to restrain Doctor Rush, but he'd been a bit difficult to control since he always seemed very aware of where the Colonel was and would follow him, sit next to him, try to kiss him or climb on top of him. The bond must still be having an effect on them, she thought, although Colonel Young didn't think so. 

Rush's EEG, or the Ancient version of it, showed that he had finally shifted to normal REM sleep patterns. Perhaps the medication was wearing off now. At any rate, she had no intention of disturbing him. He'd been exhausted, a state he ended up in much too often since she'd known him. What he really needed was two solid weeks of enough sleep, water, decent plentiful food, and exercise in fresh air and sunshine without his laptop or access to Destiny's systems. 

Not a jungle planet, though, where your energy was leeched from you as sweat drenched your clothes, with vicious insects and worse to watch out for. A beach would be nice. A nice breezy one with no predators to stalk him or drag him off to their lair... 

_Stop that_ she told herself. _Focus, Johansen._ She had lived through being taken by that intelligent feline-like species and had kept Reynolds from losing it; she'd conducted herself as an officer should. She was strong. She was military, and these people needed her; Colonel Young needed her.

Rush should wake up without any remaining problems, other than being pissed when he found out he'd been sleepwalking and clinging to the Colonel. 

But the Colonel, she was concerned about him. 

He'd been almost in shock, shaky, sweaty, a hand rubbing at his temples, eyes squinting. His blood pressure was a lot lower than she liked to see. Once they'd made their slow way to the infirmary, she'd made him drink an electrolyte solution and headache tea and had him lie down under a blanket.

Since he'd admitted his confusion about what had been happening, his suspicion that Destiny had been interfering with his dreams, she'd administered an EEG for him, too, after mapping his brain with several of Destiny's scanners that they'd figured out. The mesolimbic and mesocortical dopaminergic pathways appeared overstimulated, and his dopamine levels were highly elevated, which might explain the vividness of the dream he'd had, so much so that he truly wasn't sure even now if he was still dreaming. His EEG had been abnormal at first, but after falling asleep had returned to a normal pattern. Whatever had caused this episode, she hoped he would be back to his usual self when he awoke.

He said the dream had started to repeat itself when Rush had entered his room. It was similar to the battle-simulation dreams Destiny had put him through before, in terms of how he felt physically afterwards. Later, when he wasn't feeling so miserable, she'd lecture him about getting medical help in any similar situation in the future, because this was the first she'd heard about how he'd been after waking up from those awful dreams of the ship exploding.

When she'd awoken from her own dreamtime that Destiny had orchestrated, she, too, had felt shaky, but she'd attributed it to recovering from being shot and losing Carmen.

Destiny could essentially decipher their brains, the electrical impulses and neural networks translated for the ship into an understanding of who they were, what their dreams and hopes and fears and joys entailed. And, as the ship had proven several times now, she could influence their minds. 

She still had ambivalent feelings about her own experience with Destiny. It had felt so real, holding her baby, Caine and the others, the walk to the lake, the warmth of the cabin, the texture and weight of the blanket wrapped around her child. The thought that Carmen had not died and was being taken care of, thanks to the intercession of those mysterious aliens, had been comforting, even as she grieved that she was now robbed of mothering her little girl. 

It had been a dream, though. Not real. Did Destiny do that to comfort her, or to make sure she would be functional and not lost in sorrow and depression?

She had needed to be functional, but she also hadn't liked thinking that maybe she was delusional. Everett had tried to make her see that Carmen was truly gone from them, had died, but she hadn't wanted to believe it.

It had felt so real. So she could empathize with the Colonel now, as he struggled to sort out what had happened only in his dream and what had happened in reality. 

Destiny had wanted to help her, maybe altruistically, maybe for very pragmatic reasons, but what reason did the ship have to do this to the Colonel?

Maybe he knew or could guess, but from the guarded answers he gave her, she suspected that he wasn't going to tell her everything. 

But whatever it was, she knew it centered on Doctor Rush. 

* * *

It must have been Rush stirring that woke him from another dream. One of Rush's dreams again. This day just kept on being great. Rush stilled in his arms on the gurney, his head heavy against Everett's bicep. He'd gone back to sleep. 

Everett closed his eyes. If he slid off the gurney, then Rush would really wake up and he needed as much sleep as he could get. Anyway, he still felt wiped out himself, so maybe it was better to stay put. At least he didn't feel as confused as he had. He was certain he was awake and not dreaming.

Rush's dream had been interesting. He'd been on a fishing boat, and he couldn't have been much more than thirteen. He'd been cold and tired but he'd grinned at his friend, an older teen with shaggy brown hair, as they pulled in heavy nets filled with some kind of small lobster. _Langoustine_ , the name floating up from somewhere in his head. _Found in the mud patches of the river Clyde estuary._

The yellow rubber coat Rush had worn had ended well below his calves; he'd had on yellow and blue rubber overalls, blue rubber gloves, and a knitted cap pulled down over his ears. Scavenging sea birds had trailed the boat, the air had been brisk, the sound of the engines droning on. The langoustine had been emptied from the net onto the deck of the boat, and Rush had done some kind of intricate weaving with the net rope, readying it to be tossed back into the ocean as the other boy had carefully coiled ropes in loops. _A foot caught in a rope could pull a man overboard and drown him. That hard lesson had been taught to Nick by the back of the captain's hand when he'd carelessly stepped on the coils, but now that he was an experienced fisherman he'd been grateful to only have had a split lip and bruised cheek instead of his da having to be told of how he'd drowned._

Later, as his fingers flew sorting out the different sizes of the langoustine, tossing them into buckets for market, John working opposite him, he'd felt happy. It was his birthday and he was fifteen. He'd bring back enough cash to pay his da's rent for a month while the man's shattered leg mended, even if the captain had chosen him because he could get away with not paying him full wages since he wasn't a grown man. The other hands had doubted he could pull the heavy nets up, but he'd proven them wrong once he'd fiddled with the arrangement of ropes and pulleys. He fair loved his science books, and what he'd learned from them. The captain had been impressed, even if all he'd done was grunt about it. 

Everett yawned; his body felt heavy. It was impossible to move and then he was sliding back into sleep himself and into Rush's dream-memory of being on that fishing boat. He realized that Rush was home again, in Glasgow. He watched Rush's memories unfold.

After helping to unloaded their catch the two boys had been paid and told to come back in three days, since the engines needed some work. John and Nick walked along on the wooden dock, bags slung over their shoulders, and John bumped Nick's shoulder.

“Hey, Nick. The Cure is playing at Barrowlands tonight and we'll no have to pay since my daft cousin's working. He'll give us our drinks for free, too.”

Nick elbowed him. “For free, is it? Is it your cousin Thomas, then? The big bruiser?”

“Aye, that's the one.”

Nick gave the other boy a very skeptical look. “He no seemed like he was that fond of you, that day I came to your granny's house. So, what have you got on him?”

John grinned. “Plenty. But I'll keep it to meself. Come to my house, then. You can borrow my older brother's clothes, he's more your size than me, and he's in London working. My mother'll be away to hospital for the night shift and my da won't pay us a bit of attention once the telly is on. Say you will, seeing the Cure will be a pure dead brilliant way to celebrate your birthday.”

“My da--”

“Doesn't know exactly when you were coming back, so you can go home tomorrow. It's not as if he would worry about you, anyway.” John caught his hand. “Come over here,” he said, tugging at Nick to follow him, and they ducked in between two buildings that bordered the docks.

John dropped his bag and took Nick's off his shoulder, letting it fall on the wooden planks. “Please, Nick. I want you to go with me.”

He put his hands on Nick's shoulders and looked intently at him. “You have to know that I like you, and no just as a friend. I think you like me, too.” He moved closer and with one hand tilted Nick's face up. “Do you like me, Nick?”

Nick went very still. He licked his lips and then said, “O' course I do.”

“So if I do this,” John gently kissed him, “you'll no say you don't kiss boys?”

Nick smiled and ran a hand slowly through his hair, a shy look settling on his face. “Oh, I won't be saying that.” He kissed John back, putting his arms around him. 

After a few minutes of kissing each other, John pushed him away and asked “So you'll go with me tonight?”

“Aye.” Nick laughed, sounding impish and carefree. “I would have anyway, without you kissing me. It's the Cure.”

* * *

Everett watched within the dream, bemused and a little enchanted as Nick and John went on their date. John looked to be between seventeen and eighteen, a short, muscular boy with sturdy shoulders and unruly hair. Nick's hair was shorter than he'd worn it at Icarus, and he was tiny. He hadn't gotten his last growth spurt yet, and without the heavy fisherman outfit he was delicate looking, his features elfin. He used John's razor after showering but Everett doubted he even had any peach fuzz on his sharp chin.

The clothes he borrowed were still large on him and he had to roll up the jeans. Everett remembered the Cure. They were a punk rock band, and the two boys dressed up for the occasion in true punk style with heavy boots, lots of chains, ripped jeans, and flannel shirts with the sleeves hacked off at the shoulders and half the buttons gone. They raided John's sister's room for eyeliner and eye shadow and hair gel, laughing at themselves as they fumbled their way through applying the makeup and fixing their hair into more spiky versions.

The Barrowlands sign was big and bright, neon coloring the name and the shooting stars. Nick and John went to the employees' entrance and pounded on the door. Thomas, a burly man in his twenties, with the same color and texture of hair as John, came to the door and let them in. 

Waggling a finger at John, he said, a surly tone to his voice, “We're even now. You want to come back, you pay for it.”

“We'll be even after tonight, but the drinks are on you,” John shot back, a smug look on his face. 

Thomas grunted in aggrieved compliance. “For you, then.” His gaze shifted to Nick. “But this wee boy, he's too young.” 

“He works on the Mairi D. same as me and Mattie. He does a man's work, Thomas. And he's fifteen today. He gets to celebrate with a drink or two,” John countered, sounding stubborn.

“You get him muntered, he's your problem then, cousin.” He made a show of wiping his hand on John's shirt. “I wash my hands of the two of you.” Thomas stamped their hands and said, “What'll you have then?” 

John shot a look at Nick. “It's your birthday, what do you fancy?”

“I'd like to give vodka wi' a fizzy drink a go,” Nick said seriously.

“The vodka is strong, don't end up mad wi' it,” Thomas warned. He took down a bottle and a glass and started mixing Nick's drink. He gave his cousin a baleful look. “And you, ya nugget, what'll you have?” 

“Ginger beer. One with alcohol in it, not that other, oh, and some crisps,” John ordered, and gave Thomas a wide smile.

“Perfect then. So,” he said, after sliding their drinks and snack to them. “Go on wi' you and leave me in peace.” In the main room music started blaring and the two boys left the bar.

* * *

Everett watched as the boys danced to the music, together and separately, and sometimes with others in the crowd around them. 

Rush was having fun; Everett was glad he was reliving a good time in his life. Occasionally John would pull him in close and they'd kiss, leaving Rush flushed and laughing and a little giddy.

Rush giddy. That was something Everett probably wouldn't ever see on Destiny. 

* * *

It was towards the end of the evening when the tone of Rush's dream started to shift. He was a little tipsy after his second drink, but not drunk, and John asked him to go get them another round while he waited in line for the bathroom. 

It was crowded, and a man bumped into him, making him spill his drink on the floor. 

“Oh, sorry,” the man said. “I owe you a drink, mate. What were you drinking?” The man took the glass out of Nick's hand and drank down the rest of what was left. “Vodka and fizzy drink, was it?” 

Nick nodded. “That's--”

The man interrupted him. “Come wi' me, then, and let's get you another. On me.” He took Nick by the arm and they walked back into the bar. “Wait here; you look a bit young to be buying for yourself.”

He came back shortly and handed the replacement drink to Nick. “Sorry about that. I'm going to go smoke outside, want to join me when you finish that off?”

“I don't have any fags with me. I don't smoke that much.” Hardly ever, actually, Everett realized. 

“I'll take care of it,” the man said.

“Let me see if my friend is out of the loo yet.” Nick drank down his drink quickly, and wove his way back through the crowd, but John was still in line. Nick handed him his bottle of ginger beer and said he was going to go and have a quick smoke.

Everett watched as teenage Rush met up with the man. They went outside and into an alley. The man pulled out his cigarettes and lit his own, and then handed one to Rush, and lit it for him. They smoked and talked about the band. 

When he was done with his cigarette, he gave Rush another and lit it for him again. “Enjoy that, I'm going back in.”

He left Rush in the alley and exchanged words with the man working the door before going back inside. 

There was an uneasy feeling to the dream now as Everett felt himself slip more into Rush's head. The boy was alone for the moment in the alley, the couple who'd come out to smoke further down had headed back inside. Maybe it was the nicotine or because he'd guzzled his drink so quickly, but Nick was starting to feel funny. Lightheaded and sleepy and his feet and legs didn't want to do what he told them to do. He should go back inside, find John. He dropped the cigarette and watched the glow fade as it died out, his attention distracted. 

A van pulled down the alley and he stumbled back against the wall of the building. The van stopped next to him and the side doors opened and two men jumped out and grabbed his arms.

Everett could feel Rush's distress ratchet up in the dream. He remembered the words thrown at him when the ship had meddled; when Rush had said that at least he hadn't drugged him and fucked him in a van.

Oh, god, it had been real, not just Rush saying that. Everett tried to pull out of the dream entirely, to wake up so he could wake Rush up before anything else happened to him, but he couldn't. He was trapped and Rush was trapped and he was going to have to watch what happened.

Rush was lifted into the van, and Everett felt it, hard hands on his arms, gripping him too tight, and instead of pulling away from Rush's experiences he was feeling them entirely, like he had when Rush had been studying in a bar in Oxford.

He opened his mouth to yell, but a hand silenced him, the van doors shut and the vehicle rolled slowly down the alley. His heart was beating too fast and he was afraid but he was finding it hard to move or to think, and he was pushed down to the floor of the van and someone was unbuckling his belt. 

He felt the van stop again and someone got in. “Is he ready?” he heard a man's voice say. 

Everett felt sick and scared and everything was becoming unreal, as hands started to undress him. He tried again to free himself from Rush, so he could save him, so he could save himself from what was happening, but he couldn't. He couldn't.

Then he was freed, and he knew he hadn't done it. He opened his eyes to see TJ bending over both of them, one hand on each of their shoulders and he was so grateful to her for waking them up.

“Sir? Doctor Rush?” 

“TJ,” he gasped, still feeling the effects of the dream. “Check Rush.”

Rush sat up abruptly on the gurney. He looked distressed and confused as he took in where he was at. He batted away TJ's hands and slid off the gurney, throwing the blanket on Everett. He clenched his fists hard and then brought one up to his mouth and shuddered.

“Hey,” Everett said, and shuddered himself. “Rush?” The other man's eyes were distant and Everett wasn't sure he was really tracking what was going on. “Nicholas?” he asked, trying to put a lid on his turmoil and sound non-threatening.

“What?” Rush said, sounding lost. He shot a look at Everett. “Why were we?” He waved a hand at the gurney.

“Are you all right?” Everett asked, feeling sick about what had happened to Rush. 

Rush looked away and ran a hand through his hair. “I suppose so. But why am I here? With you?”

Everett pushed away the blanket that had covered them both and tried to look calm and collected. “I'll let TJ explain.” 

Rush didn't seem okay to him, he'd begun clenching and unclenching his hands, and taking deep breaths until something seemed to calm him. Well, if Rush didn't want to admit what had happened in that dream, Everett wasn't going to bring it up. The man had already had too much of Everett poking unwanted into his past. 

He rolled off the other side of the gurney, away from Rush. After what he'd seen he couldn't bear to look at him for very long because he'd raped him in that simulation, as much as those men in the van had done when Rush was just a kid. 

TJ had been watching them quietly, but after Rush settled down she said, “I woke you because both of you seemed to be having a nightmare, and your EEG REM patterns became almost identical.”

“What?” Rush's eyes widened and he turned pale, which was not lost on TJ, since she stepped close to him and supported his elbow, while he shot Everett a panicked glance.

“Your blood pressure and pulse also zoomed up, Doctor Rush, and so did the Colonel's. Just sit back down, both of you. I want to take your vitals again.” She gave them a no-nonsense look and took the EEG Ancient device from Rush's temple, holding it delicately between her thumb and finger. “Then we'll talk about what's been happening.” 

Everett removed his own device before moving to a different gurney almost on the other side of the infirmary, leaving Rush standing there next to TJ. The faster he was cleared, the better. He felt overwhelmed by what had happened and he needed time to think things through. And he couldn't do that while he had to see Rush's bewildered expression.

* * *

Rush did a double take when TJ told him about his sleepwalking, darting a questioning look at Everett. He nodded back at Rush, who began ineffectively trying to rub the tension out of his neck and shoulder. TJ asked him about any history of sleepwalking as a child and he slowly shook his head no. He said he didn't remember anything after taking his medicine and falling asleep until he'd woken up in the infirmary. He didn't admit to remembering his dream. He was lying to TJ, of course he was, but Everett didn't dispute him; instead, he too said he didn't remember if they'd been sharing a dream or not. 

He didn't think TJ bought it, but on this he was letting Rush call the shots. 

As he'd predicted, Rush was most concerned that he'd done something while sleepwalking to the ship. Volker's scans hadn't found anything, but Rush looked unconvinced. He'd run his own, Everett knew. 

What Volker had found was a program that had been run during the night. He couldn't make heads or tails out of it, he'd told TJ, and asked that Rush and Eli take a look at it.

“When Eli comes back from Homeworld Command,” Everett said, somewhat cautiously.

TJ had looked carefully at him, and nodded. Even now, after he and TJ and Rush had hashed things out, the simulation seemed more real than the truth, which was that he'd been asleep in his quarters. Apparently Destiny had anticipated that Rush would find him there, and had set things up to see how they'd play out. Then the simulation had ended, and he'd returned to normal sleep, only to be awakened by Rush really coming to his quarters.

He didn't tell either Rush or TJ everything that had happened in the simulation, just that Rush had come in and he'd had trouble understanding what was going on with the other man and had radioed TJ to check him out. He glossed over how much Rush had wanted close physical contact with him, both in the simulation and in real time, but from the flush that had stained Rush's cheeks, he knew Rush had read between the lines. He didn't even ask why Everett had been sleeping with him on the gurney. 

Everett didn't tell either of them that he'd had sex with Rush in the simulation. That he'd raped him. He'd decided to keep that information as his own private hell.

It was clear to Everett that Destiny had known what had happened to Rush on his fifteenth birthday. It was surely no coincidence that the man had had those memories dredged back up. Destiny had messed with Rush's head, too. 

He'd said so to Rush quietly while TJ was waiting on the results of blood tests. “Destiny was taking a look into your mind, too, you know, since the ship knew you were sleepwalking and going to come and find me. She might have stimulated memories in your head because of that. Do you want to talk about that nightmare? How are you feeling?”

“I'm fine. Don't worry about it, Colonel,” Rush said, looking the opposite of fine to Everett.

“Rush. I'm sorry.”

Shrugging, Rush said, “And what have you to be sorry about? Forget about it, Colonel. The ship does what the ship does. There probably was a reason, even if we don't understand it yet.”

Rush drew a little closer, lowering his voice. “Are you alright?”

“Truthfully?” Making a non-committal gesture with his hands, Everett answered, “I'm not sure.” 

“You'll not find your answer in Brody's moonshine, though.” Rush raised his eyebrows at him, and Everett found it within himself to smile a little back at him.

“No. I try not to make the same mistakes twice.”

“Hmm,” Rush said, looking at Everett like he was a monitor with a glitch. “Eh, try to put whatever happened in that simulation behind you, Colonel.”

“Sure.” 

He and Rush felt it then, the disorienting feeling of dropping out of FTL.

Looking at the watch on his wrist, Rush murmured, “We're right on time. I have to go.” Giving him another long look first, Rush zeroed in on TJ. He dashed over to her side and Everett listened to him pester her about clearing him for going down to the planet. 

It was a relief when she did, so Everett didn't have to see him for a while. He was going to go for a long run, and think.

* * *

**Safe House. Earth**

 

It was a relief for everyone when Colonel Telford wasn't visiting the safe house, Mary thought. The staff smiled at Malin much more, and for the most part didn't refer to him as Doctor Rush when talking to him. They didn't cross the line by actually using his name, but called him a range of nicknames instead.

Like now. One of the medics, Airman Drugov, was taking mandatory vitals this morning and calling Malin, “Short stuff.” Kid, kiddo, hombre, little guy were also popular. So were sweetie and sweetheart and honey, but Malin only accepted those endearments from a few people, herself included. Everyone else got a cross look and rapid signing to the effect that he wasn't their sweetheart or cutie pie. 

She knew some of the team assigned here did that on purpose, to tease Malin. They weren't being malicious about it, they just thought he was cute when he was in a huff over being babied. 

Putting a stop to it was an option for her, and if it truly distressed Malin she wouldn't hesitate to do so, but he needed to learn how to deal with good-natured teasing and there were no other children to play with to facilitate those kinds of experiences. Socially, the team was a stand-in for his peers. So, he needed to figure out when to ignore them, when to josh them back, and to let it go without throwing a small fit about it. She often had discussions with him about needed social skills. 

Malin was a genius when it came to mathematics and physics, and she had no idea how much was retained from when he'd been Nicholas Rush and how much was his native ability. He wasn't a genius when it came to understanding personal interactions between people. Nicholas Rush hadn't been very good at it, from what she could tell. Or rather, he could read people, she'd seen him do it, but he often didn't seem to know what to do with what he'd learned. 

Maybe nobody had helped Doctor Rush puzzle his way through complex human behavior when he was a boy, but they could do better for Malin. When he was returned to the Siler's he would have daily lessons certainly, living in a large family like that. And from what Malin had told her about Sergeant Siler's large brood, his brothers would certainly tease him from time to time.

Drugov finished up with Malin by ruffling his hair, which only prompted an eyeroll in return. Malin had warmed up to the medic once he'd learned the airman had stayed with Siler after he was hurt until a med team had arrived in Doctor Lee's lab. One good thing about Malin – and Doctor Rush – was that neither one tended to keep a grudge.

Colonel Telford, on the other hand... He really despised Doctor Rush, despite appreciating his skills. He'd told her that Rush was on board with what they were doing with Malin, that he thought they should increase the memory device's settings.

Odd, that they should have the same agenda about Malin. Strange bedfellows, indeed.

* * *

Mary watched Malin put what looked like a clunky kind of Lego aircraft without wings on the shelf where a model of Destiny was perched. He quickly and efficiently picked up the Legos and put them back on the toy shelf. Then he pulled a memo sized notebook decorated with illicit dinosaurs stickers out of his back pocket, grabbed a pencil, and ran outside. Clenching the pencil and the notebook in his mouth, he climbed up to the top of the play jungle gym the Marines assigned to the safe house had assembled for him and perched at the top of the lookout tower, his back to the wooden wall that enclosed it. 

Malin loved writing in his little notebooks. The staff, of course, looked at them, mostly when Malin was asleep. Some were just drawings – the stargate, a strange configuration that resembled an apple core, stick figures of people he knew – he'd drawn Jack O'Neill playing with a yo-yo – and some were mathematical problems that were still a foreign language to her despite having watched Amanda work with those symbols for years. 

Anything scientific was photocopied and sent out to be studied by more qualified scientists. The team was under orders to destroy any pictures of family, but the kinder personal would let it slide by. Malin had learned if he didn't print names under his drawings, the team would classify them as unknown figures and he could keep them. 

Some notebooks were encoded. Nobody had been able to make heads or tails of them so far. Copies of those too, were sent out to be studied. Malin wouldn't explain them, growing as stubborn as only a six-year-old could be.

Although he wouldn't be a six-year-old forever. Mary knew there had been speculation that Malin would remain as a perpetual child, frozen in his development. She supposed that could have happened, since he'd descended from a higher plane. But, he was starting to look more coltish. His arms and legs were growing longer, giving him that typical six-year-old going on seven-year-old appearance. 

And he had a loose tooth.

He wiggled it constantly, his fingers tugging it back and forth, but he wouldn't let any adults try to pull it out for him. The conversation he'd had regarding the Tooth Fairy had been priceless, since Malin was such a little skeptic when it came to fantasy. Mary had quietly recorded it, hoping to one day send it to the Silers. From what General O'Neill had told her, they were relentlessly lobbying the IOA for the return of their son. They were missing milestones and she felt enormously sympathetic towards them. She was tempted to contact them but her better sense would win out. If she blatantly ignored the restrictions the IOA had put into place, and was discovered, she'd be fired, and the IOA would agree with General Telford that her watchdog position was detrimental to this mission. 

No. Better she stay with Malin for the next months, keeping a careful eye on what was happening. She was sure that just her presence had kept some experimental procedures from being run on the boy.

 

* * *

“Sorry about this, little guy,” Drugov said quietly, and adjusted the device on the boy's temple. Malin, sitting on a stool in the kitchen, squinted his eyes and clenched his fists. “Breathe through it, buddy. The aspirin will start to kick in pretty soon.” He muttered to himself, “I hope.”

“If he's still feeling pain in ten minutes, then you'd better go back to the last setting, Airman,” Mary said, and signed to Malin, asking how he was feeling. His fingers slow to respond, he said his head hurt.

Telford had left orders to increase the setting of the memory device tonight before Malin went to sleep. There was an adjustment period each time they did this, and so far a dose of aspirin had helped to smooth away the headache that resulted. Usually it took a day before Malin didn't need the medication anymore, but Mary was afraid that at some point medication wouldn't help anymore. 

“Without General Telford here, Strom from the IOA is to be contacted regarding any changes in Telford's orders,” Drugov said woodenly. “I know you can file a protest and call General O'Neill, but I've got strict orders not to follow your directives, Miss Mary.” He said it loudly enough for the tech watching the monitor to hear, then he winked at her. 

Drugov would find a medical reason to remove the device if it came to that. The burly young airman had developed a soft spot for the boy in his care, but he had to carefully walk the line General Telford had spelled out. He'd told her that one medic had been removed from the mission already for trying to comfort “Doctor Rush” like the child he appeared to be, and he thought it would be better for his patient if he stayed on this assignment. 

“Let's try to distract him, Miss Mary.” He pulled up a chair next to the stool and dropped into it. “Hey, mathboy, why don't you calculate Pi, see how far you get in the next fifteen minutes?”

Malin shook his head no, and then covered his mouth with his hands. 

“How about you sit really still and not move your head, okay?” Drugov said, patting Malin on the knee after shooting a look around to see if he was being watched. To Mary he said, “Looks like he's feeling nauseous. Want to grab a bowl down from the shelf, just in case?” 

She got the bowl to Drugov just in time and Malin vomited up his dinner as she held him steady on the stool. He looked like he wanted to cry afterwards, but he didn't, he signed that he wanted to brush his teeth. 

“I'll take him,” she told the medic, and picked Malin up. He wrapped his legs around her waist and put his arms around her neck, his breath hot and smelling like stomach bile. Poor baby, she thought, as he laid his head on her shoulder. She hoped whatever information they gleaned from his mind was worth making him feel miserable.

“Let's put him to bed,” Drugov said, taking out a bottle from a cupboard. “I'll give him some pedialyte in small sips. Hopefully the aspirin's already in his bloodstream.”

“I know some acupressure,” Mary said. “We'll see if that helps with the nausea.” She carried Malin into the bathroom and helped him to rinse his mouth and brush his teeth. Usually he wanted privacy to use the toilet or take a shower, but he didn't protest when she helped him this time. She carried him to the bed afterwards and made him comfortable, an extra pillow under his shoulders and head. He was pale, his eyes a little glassy. She dimmed the lights, hoping that would help his headache.

Sitting down on the bed, she pressed down on a pressure point above his small wrist for a while, and then switched to the web of muscle between his thumb and forefinger. He watched her, a solemn look on his face. She hummed softly, and he sighed and closed his eyes. 

Drugov padded softly over to her. For such a big man, he could move very stealthily. “He asleep?” he asked softly.

Malin cracked his eyes open. “Okay, then. Hey, buddy-boy, sip on this, all right?” He offered Malin a glass with a bent straw. The boy made a disgusted expression. “Ah, c'mon. Try just a little?”

Mary let go of his hand and sighing, Malin took the glass and sipped on the drink slowly, until half of it was gone. She signed to him about how he was feeling. 

His head still hurt, he signed back, but not as much, and his stomach felt funny. 

“Go to sleep, baby,” she said. “You'll feel better when you wake up.” 

He closed his eyes and in minutes his breathing slowed as he dropped into sleep. 

Drugov put a hand on her shoulder briefly. “You might as well get some sleep too, Miss Mary. He might be up and down if that device really kicks in.”

“Maybe in a while, Airman.” She swept some of Malin's flyaway hair back off his forehead, her fingers lingering, feeling the fine texture. “I hope all of this is worth it.”

“General Telford and the IOA think so,” Drugov said doggedly.

“He's just a child with memories that don't belong to him anymore and that for the most part have no relevance to General Telford's fear of invasion from the Nakai,” she said.

“But he might give us a key to defeating them. The way I see it, Miss Mary, we have to try.”

“For the greater good,” she said, and kissed Malin on the forehead.

“He came back, Miss Mary, so he must believe it was the right thing to do,” Drugov said thoughtfully. 

“I'm sure Doctor Rush believed that. Malin isn't him, not anymore.” She stood up, careful not to jostle the sleeping child.

“Well, I'm glad you're here looking out for him.” He stepped a little closer and said very quietly, “I won't compromise my oath as a medic. If doing this begins to damage him, I'll pull medical rank. I promise you that, Miss Mary.”

She flicked her eyes at the computer stations where the scientists were working. Nobody was watching her. Just as quietly she asked, “And where do we draw the line, Airman? What you did tonight did hurt him.”

Drugove looked uncomfortable as he glanced down at Malin. “He's in discomfort, sure. But not more than kids with a virus. And it should lessen soon, going by the last time we upped the settings.”

“I wish this was over,” Mary said, with a sigh.

“We all do, Miss Mary. Maybe he'll dream something tonight that will give Homeworld Command what's needed.”

* * *

Malin woke up seven times with nightmares; he was listless and cranky the next morning. The team felt sorry for him, from the Marines who were assigned as guards to the scientists who watched the monitor for the memory device to Drugov's relief medic. There were suggestions for comfort food for kids with upset stomachs – chicken broth, Sprite and ginger ale, toast, bananas – to the airman assigned as the team's cook, and the head scientist declared that “Doctor Rush” was excused from his usual routine of mathematics and playing with the toys General Telford had deemed useful. 

Malin turned up his nose at suggestions from the team to read books or to be read to instead. He didn't want to build anything with his Legos. He didn't want to play any card games. He refused to play video games with the medic. He didn't want to go outside. He didn't want his yo-yo. He didn't want to go back to sleep. He didn't want to sit on Mary's lap. He didn't want to draw or color or paint. He didn't want to watch TV. He didn't want to play in the bathtub. 

He only took a few bites of his late breakfast of plain toast and half a banana before pushing it away. His lower lip started to stick out and he crossed his arms over his chest. 

And then one of the scientists asked him what he wanted. 

That was it. Malin signed, “I want my mama and daddy,” and started crying silently after shoving his plate on the floor, the banana landing with a splat. 

“Malin, time to take a nap,” Mary said calmly, hoping to avert a total meltdown. She pushed her chair back from the table, ready to move over to his side.

“What'd he say?” Doctor Melvin asked. Mary translated, and the man looked upset. As Mary glanced around she saw guilt and pity on the faces of some of the team. Others were busy not making eye contact. 

Then Malin made a run for the front door. Despite obviously not feeling good, he was fast and was struggling with the locked door when one of the Marines caught him. He picked him up and Malin turned into a little wildcat, hitting and kicking and twisting to get free. 

Mary ran over to them. “Malin, stop.” To the Marine she said urgently, “Don't hurt him. He's just upset.”

The Marine tucked Malin under an arm, holding him so that his wild kicking and swinging his fists were ineffective. “I'm not going to hurt him; I'm just going to hold him like this till he runs out of steam.”

“Watch it, Banks,” one of the other Marines called. “He bites.”

And right on cue, Malin tried to twist his head around to try it, but the Marine angled him so he was facing out a little more, his little face screwed up and tears flooding down his face. 

Mary sighed and waited for the emotional storm to pass.

* * *

“Here,” Doctor Murphy said. Mary looked up from where she was sitting on the edge of Malin's bed to see that the other woman was offering her a mug. “You look like you could use a cup of coffee.”

Mary smiled tiredly at her and took the coffee. 

“You take it black, right?” Doctor Murphy asked. She looked as Irish as her name implied, with light blue eyes and a head of short red curls, freckles covering her arms and nose.

“You've observant, Doc-” Doctor Murphy interrupted her.

“Just call me Murphy,” she said and frowned, looking down at Malin, finally asleep again. “What was all that signing he was doing after he finally calmed down? He looked scared to death.”

“He said over and over that he was sorry and kept asking that we don't tell General Telford that he'd been bad.” It still disturbed her, how frantic Malin had been about General Telford knowing about his temper tantrum. Malin had started quietly crying again and she'd put him back to bed and patted his back till he fell asleep, worn out from the night before and the fit he'd thrown.

“That's interesting,” Murphy said. “You hadn't joined us yet, but when the kiddo first came here he was having one tantrum after the other. Nobody could get him to cooperate, until the General had a talk with him. Since then he's done everything we've asked him to do, even if he rolls his eyes or pouts a little about it.”

Murphy looked thoughtful. “Makes you wonder what exactly Telford has over him, to make a little spitfire like him toe the line.”

Malin was wary of Telford, that was blindingly obvious to Mary. He wouldn't be cooperating out of respect or because he liked the man or for a reward. Maybe he was afraid of being punished. 

Nudging Mary's shoulder, Murphy asked, “Want to see what he dreamed about last night?” Malin rolled over in his sleep, tear tracks on his face, and Mary brushed the hair out of his eyes. 

Standing up, Mary said, “I might as well. He'll be out for hours. I hope, anyway.” She followed Murphy to the area where the monitors were constantly recording images from Malin's brain. There was nothing out of the ordinary from his mind when he was awake, except sometimes complex mathematical equations. 

But when he was asleep, it was a different story.

“I tell you, Mary, that being on this project has really gotten me interested in past life memories,” Murphy said, sliding into a chair in front of a monitor. Mary sat down beside her and took a long sip of her coffee. This was going to be a long day. Caffeine was very welcome.

“I've always been pretty much a skeptic. By the time I was eleven I was sick to death about hearing about Bridey Murphy and wrote off the whole concept of past lives as bullshit.” Murphy busied herself at the keyboard. “And it's pretty well established that her experience was exactly that.”

“Bridey Murphy?” The name sounded dimly familiar to Mary.

“My grandmother believed that we were somehow related – like the name Murphy isn't as common as sand – and that she really existed.” Murphy snorted. “Under hypnotism, a woman started talking about her past life as an Irish woman. But it turns out, when she was a very young child her Irish neighbor was named that and she used to know her. Her memories that she couldn't consciously recall were slapped together into a narrative. But the facts didn't all corroborate her memories. So, in a word, no. She hadn't lived a past life in Ireland and died and was reborn.”

Mary took another sip of her coffee, enjoying the familiar taste. “But now that you can actually see Nicholas Rush's memories playing out in Malin's mind, and they can be corroborated, you're willing to keep an open mind?”

“I'm a scientist. If new data come to light, and it's creditable, then I'll reexamine my premises. I have to wonder what would happen if other people used this technology and their unconscious minds were stimulated. What would we see? What happens after death?” Murphy raised her eyebrows inviting a response.

“A question that every religion I can think of has tried to answer,” Mary said, while Murphy brought up a picture of what she guessed was Destiny, the curved metal walls, the patterned lights matching what Amanda had told her.

“Well,” Murphy said. “We know that ascension is possible.” Her voice took on a speculative tone. “What if when people die partial ascension occurs, at least for some, their consciousness' still intact and that conception can involve a merging of a consciousness with a new life? What are ghosts? A partially ascended consciousness that is trapped between planes of existence? Or a consciousness from a parallel dimension that has tried to cross unsuccessfully into ours?” 

“Sounds like food for thought for both scientists and philosophers,” Mary said, watching as Murphy hit play. On the screen, Rush knocked on a large door, an intricate looking set of circles decorating it. After a few moments, the circles spun and whirred and a slim oriental looking woman, barely shorter than Rush, answered the door. “Nicholas,” she said. 

“Camile,” he answered, sounding awkward. “I, well, I do need to talk to you. We were interrupted the last time I came by.”

She stood aside. “Come in.” He entered what must be her quarters. They were fairly plain, with only a bed and a chest, a desk and chairs, but it did have an interesting curved window with blue light streaming outside of it. A drawing of a beach with a boat pulled up on the sand graced one wall. From hearing Camile Wray talk with Sharon, when Amanda and Camile had exchanged consciousness, she knew it represented their dream of retiring together. 

It had been odd for her to see the different mannerisms play out on Amanda's face when Camile inhabited her body, but she supposed the trade had benefited both women. Camile got to spend time with her wife, and Amanda gloried in being able to move on her own, to walk or run or even feed herself. And she had acted on a long time desire, and had kissed Nicholas Rush. She'd been so happy about that when she'd told Mary. 

Rush was rubbing his shoulder, his body language screaming out just how uncomfortable he was. “It's about Amanda Perry.”

Camile smiled at him, and Mary thought she looked a little mischievous. “I thought it might be. TJ told me she saw you two hugging.”

Rush scowled and crossed his arms. “Why can't people on this ship mind their own bloody business?” he snapped. 

Laughing out loud, she took him by the arm and towed him over to a chair. “It's all right, Nicholas. Sit down, and let me put your mind at ease.”

Then those images were gone. Murphy paused the recording. “I could do with another cup of coffee myself. How about you? Want a refill?”

“Sure.” She glanced at the bed but Malin was still asleep. 

Murphy pointed to another monitor a pair of scientists was watching. “That's in real time. We record everything, then make an edited copy with anything that might be useful for General Telford.”

“So I've gathered,” Mary said. The team hadn't shared that much with her but she'd figured out a few things.

Suddenly the scientists at the other monitor became much more alert, sitting forward. “Murph,” one of them called. “You've got to see this!”

As Mary and Murphy moved quickly to the other station, Doctor Carney said in a shocked voice, “Oh my God! He killed Telford!”

On the monitor screen, Telford was rigidly plastered against some sort of electrical equipment, and the sound of his body sizzling with the current was sickening. He was dead, his eyes wide and bulging. Rush was whispering to himself, “Ah, no,” in a wretched tone of voice. He came close to Telford's body and started to reach out, then stopped himself, his hands held together in front of his lips, as if he were praying to the universe to turn back time. Even Mary, who counted herself lucky to know how to fix a breaker when a circuit was overloaded, knew that it was hopeless for him to pull Telford away from the equipment. He'd only die, too. Rush made a horrified sound and then, with a sob, he backed away and started running down a corridor that was ready to explode, judging by the constant rain of sparks and smoke wafting through the air.

Everyone turned and stared at the child asleep in the bed.

“Sweet Jesus,” Carney said. “He killed Telford. They got into an argument and shoved at each other. Doctor Rush shoved Telford backwards and he...” He shuddered, and repeated, “He killed Telford.”

“The other Telford. And it sounds like it wasn't intentional,” Murphy said. “But I doubt that makes a difference to General Telford.” 

By the looks on the scientists' and Marines' faces, they agreed. Malin couldn't be brought up on charges, not a six-year-old. But this would just be one more thing for Telford to hold against the adult Doctor Rush, even if it was his double who had done this, and she didn't know if General Telford was above trying to get revenge on Malin.

He'd have a fight on his hands if he tried, though. She'd see to that. 

* * *

**Gateroom. Destiny**

 

David watched Scott take charge of the people talking in small groups, or shrugging on knapsacks and BDU jackets. His directions were clear and concise, the military personal immediately complying with his directives, the civilians more scattered and needing in some cases a firm, but polite, reminder.

“Mr. Brody, dial the gate,” Scott ordered. The sound of the chevrons locking drew everyone's attention.

Scott looked at him, and then walked over, turning sideways so their conversation would remain private. “Sir,” he said. “Which group would you prefer? Mine or James?”

“I'll give you a hand, Lieutenant. But I'm just along for the ride, you'll be in command unless I tell you otherwise,” David said. Scott had done a good job out here, taken on far more responsibility than his rank warranted, according to the official reports and David's on board sources. The details weren't known to him, but Scott had somehow helped Everett to pull his shit back together when he'd been on the verge of really losing it, not that Scott would ever tell David that. He was loyal to Young. David was okay with that as long as it wasn't impeding the safety of the crew. He was pretty sure that Scott hadn't been in on Rush's little fireworks show to make them stop trying to dial the gate while flying through a star. From what he'd been told, that had been the science team backing Rush up.

Scott's radio claimed his attention and he stepped away. The sound of running feet behind him made David turn around as the gate engaged with a whoosh. 

It was Rush, a backpack in his hand, BDU jacket open as he attempted to skid around David. 

He wasn't successful because David snaked a hand out and caught him, arrested momentum making Rush spin and almost crash into him.

“What are you doing here? I thought TJ had benched you,” David said suspiciously, looking him up and down. Rush's too-long hair was wildly tousled, the collar of his jacket partly turned under, and the shirts he was wearing were in their usual grimy looking state. One bootlace was loose. His beard did not lend him any dignity; instead, he just looked scruffy.

The man couldn't have looked less professional if he'd tried. David tried not to let it grate on him; Rush was basically a mad scientist anyway. No wonder he was always such a mess. Still. A hot mess and at times that old attraction would rear back up. Rush did clean up nice, he'd seen that for himself, but if he ever did try to scratch that itch, he'd prefer to just get him dirtier.

“Do you mind,” Rush said testily, jerking free and slinging the backpack over a shoulder. To Brody he said impatiently, “Send a kino, man. We haven't got all day.”

Brody sent the kino whizzing through the wormhole and David rolled his eyes. “You can't do an end run, Rush, and expect to go. TJ was very clear on that.”

Rush narrowed his eyes. “Lieutenant Johansen--”

“Has medically cleared him,” Scott said breaking in smoothly. “She just radioed.” He caught Rush's eye. “You're with James.”

“Fine,” he said, and trotted over to the kino monitor. Scott, a rueful half smile on his face, waited a few minutes, then raised his voice a little. “What's the verdict, Doc?” he asked Rush. 

“Twenty degrees Celsius, a bit breezy and damp, but the air is good. There are fields and woods, and it looks like a stream or small river not too far from the gate. No sign of aliens, or structures. We should go.” Rush moved over to James and stood beside her.

David saw Volker catch Brody's eye and distinctly wink. Then Volker said, sounding confused, “Twenty degrees, we'll freeze out there. We need winter gear.”

Rush looked up at the ceiling like he was praying for strength, then turned around and gave Volker an unimpressed look. “That was twenty degrees, Celsius, Mister Volker, not Fahrenheit. It's a bloody sixty-eight degrees out there, in terms you would understand. For heaven's sake, pay attention. On this ship we're using the metric system.” He turned his back to Volker to say something quietly to James, and David saw Volker put his hand behind him, palm up and Greer, for God's sake, give him five, then they tapped fists together. Greer was grinning like a jack-o-lantern and Volker looked smug.

Scott had also caught that little show, judging by the amusement on his face. Quietly, David asked, “What was that about?” and nodded towards Volker and Rush.

“A kind of drinking game,” Scott said just as quietly. “People who play are paired up and the goal is to get Doctor Rush to fuss about using the metric system. Extra points are awarded if you can get him to say, 'for heaven's sake, pay attention' or 'you lot are impossible.' Doctor Volker is hands down the best at provoking a reaction.”

“Greer's on Volker's team?” David supposed this was a harmless way to blow off steam about Rush's annoying habits.

“Yes. Chloe was on mine, but she had to drop out. No way would Doctor Rush buy that she would be confused about anything math related now. Eli teamed up with me,” Scott said. 

“Eli's a math genius,” David said dubiously. “Why doesn't Rush get suspicious about him?”

Scott said, the corner of his eyes crinkling in amusement, “Because unless we're in a crisis, which is admittedly most of the time, he thinks Eli's flaky.” 

“Is Young on a team?”

Scott shook his head. “No. He said that he didn't want Doctor Rush to think he was dumber than he already thinks he is.”

David snorted at that. “What do you win?”

“Losers have to donate one of their allotted drinks for the week to the winners.” Scott glanced up at the countdown clock. “Okay people, we've got ten hours on the clock. James, you take point.”

“Yes, sir,” she answered crisply, and stepped forward, the other military personal flanking her, the scientists in her group following behind as they walked through the gate.

* * *

David knew that the problem with disrupting the stones exchange by gate travel or by dropping out of FTL had finally been solved, mostly by Dr. Lee. The man wasn't as much of a bumbling idiot as he seemed. He'd gotten stuck, though, and had put it aside for months. 

Kid Rush had figured out the rest. Lee hadn't been too proud to send him what he had on the problem and he'd come up with the final solution. 

McKay, who also had been sent the problem, had been pretty miffed that Rush had solved it before he could. Especially when he learned it had been miniature Rush. 

Even knowing that he wouldn't be jerked back to his own body, he was relieved to see that he was still in Eli's stocky frame when he stepped out on the planet. 

“General?” Scott asked.

“Yes. It's still me. So, what are your orders, Lieutenant?” David took a deep breath of air, enjoying the fresh quality that the air recyclers on the ship couldn't replicate. The springy vegetation under his feet was shaded almost to turquoise, and the sky was a deep blue, with drifting clouds. It made a nice change from the metal walls of Destiny. 

Raising his voice so both groups could hear him, Scott ordered, “Listen up, people. The sun is this direction,” he pointed to where the sun had just risen over the tops of the tree like plants in the distance, “so we will call this due East. James, your team will go West and then swing South, my team will go East and swing North. Take samples, take readings from the kinos, but don't stop to harvest. Our two groups will stay in radio contact every fifteen minutes and circle back here in two hours. Dismissed.”

James called back, “Yes, sir,” and her group of Rush, Volker, Greer, O'Hara, Varro, and Dunning headed East, Rush sending a kino flying ahead of them.

“Barnes, dial the gate,” Scott ordered. “Fill Brody in. Then you've got our six. Chloe? Would you fly the kino? General, with all your gate team expertise I'd like you to take point.”

David nodded, satisfied so far with the way Scott was structuring the mission, assigning tasks suited to people's talents. He'd throw his recommendation for a promotion in with Everett's, when he returned to Earth.

Doctor Inman was twisting her long hair up into a bun as she and Atienza talked quietly to each other. Doctor Kemp was looking over Chloe's shoulder at the kino readings. Barnes dialed the gate and spoke to Brody. She then relayed to Scott that Brody would open the gate again in an hour and radio them. If sufficient food sources had been found, then additional crew would be woken up from stasis and sent down along with all the kino skimmers Rush had found to help with harvesting when the exploration groups returned to the gate.

The stargate shut down and the group fell into formation, Kemp rumaging in his backpack and bringing out Destiny's version of a life signs detector and Atienza checking his weapon. “Look sharp, people,” Scott said. “General?” 

Telford walked forward, his assault rifle ready. But since Destiny hadn't detected any signs of civilization from orbit, if they ran into trouble, it would probably be from some kind of animal predator, not any aliens.

* * *

It was a familiar feeling, like wearing an old pair of boots, worn but comfortable, guarding scientists while they did their work. Inman and Kemp were competent and practiced at sampling plant samples, and their foraging expedition was loosening some of the tension in people's shoulders as it became clear that most of what they'd tested was compatible with the human body. They'd also came across a strong gushing spring, the water initially testing pure. They didn't drink it though. Once hauled back to Destiny it would go through several stages of purification before it would be given out to the crew. As Scott had remarked to him, they'd learned their lesson after almost dying from drinking contaminated water from the ice planet.

They were currently testing berries from bushes that skirted the edge of the woods. These particular berries were a mottled black and red, but were about the size of a ping pong ball. Inman carefully slid a sample into the Ancient device they'd been using, one that broke down the material into nutritional information. If you could read Ancient, that was. David was fluent in it, thanks to Jackson's language lessons. He'd been asked to double check the readings, just for a second opinion, but Inman and Kemp were maybe not fluent, but they knew how to read the small scanners. Rush had taught them, they'd said. 

Rush should have been replaced by a more trustworthy scientist while he was still on Icarus. The man was a pain in the ass, and his ability to rub people wrong was almost a work of art. David had worked hard to get him off the project, but hadn't quite been successful enough before Eli had solved the power flow problem of the ninth chevron. 

David had mixed emotions about his undermining Rush's creditability back then, Sure, he'd been doing it for Kiva, but that didn't mean that Rush hadn't earned every black mark against him, starting with those two fucked up missions he'd had with David's gate team. David had made sure that everyone who counted was well acquainted with Rush's faults and failures. Rush had made it easy to do by staying isolated from almost everyone and radiating such an outsider vibe that David's campaign to make him thoroughly disliked and held in disdain had been working nicely.

The Lucian Alliance had wanted Rush after David had been brainwashed and had given them all the intel he had about the ninth chevron project. The only reason Rush hadn't been kidnapped and made to work for Kiva had been the logistics of snatching him. It had been difficult to work out a way to take him without raising too much suspicion. After Rush's wife had died a few months after he'd joined the program, the man had lived 24/7 at Cheyenne Mountain before moving out to Icarus. 

David's plan was more subtle, to get him discredited and hopefully kicked off the program altogether. Then who would care that a scientist, known to not be the most emotionally stable and grieving from the loss of his wife, had killed himself. A suicide note, a stolen zat left with Rush's fingerprints on it, and it would be accepted that he'd vaporized himself. And Kiva would have had Rush under her capable thumb, to unravel the mystery for the Alliance.

David had to admit that Rush had been useful in keeping the ship in one semi-working piece and the crew alive. Was certainly still useful, as long as he was kept on a short leash. It wasn't safe to turn him loose on his own, with no supervision, because he couldn't be trusted to put the crew before his own desires. 

McKay would be a better choice, brilliant and driven, too, but trustworthy. David resolved to take the man out to dinner when he returned to Homeworld Command and again pitch the idea to him of transferring to Destiny when gate travel to the ship was possible. If he laid on the appeal to McKay's ego thick enough, he might bite.

Scott ordered them to start circling back to the gate, to regroup with the additional crew from Destiny, leaving enough time to search for good harvesting sites as they made their way back. 

They'd just stopped to sample a plant loaded down with small blue seeds when James' voice sounded from Scott's radio. “This is James. What's your ETA to the gate, Lieutenant Scott?” Her voice sounded so professional that it sent off alarm bells in David's head.

Apparently it had in Scott's head, too, from the guarded look that crossed his face. “Approximately ten minutes, LT. Report your status.”

“Sir. My team just got to the gate; we're fine. Rush is still doing a kino search, and he's pretty far out now. He says that the fields he's seeing have to be cultivated.”

“Got it. Dial the gate, report this to Brody and the Colonel. Tell them to hold off on sending additional people down for now. We'll double time it back.” Scott looked over at David. 

David said mildly, “So we might not be alone down here.”

“Looks that way.” Scott raised his voice. “Let's move, people. Barnes, Atienza, stay sharp. Company might be dropping by for a visit.”

* * *

Rush and James were standing together when Scott's team jogged up to the gate, Kemp and Inman breathing hard and staggering to a stop. David was going to recommend that Scott work the civilians harder with that so-called training program he ran for the crew. It was simply unacceptable to have any crew member not be physically fit enough to save their asses by running like hell if needed.

He and Scott joined the other two. Rush didn't even acknowledge that they were there; he was flying the kino fast, the ground whizzing past. 

“Report,” Scott told James. 

James straightened, the model of a good soldier. “He's found a series of planted fields. In some cases, the ground's just been turned over. Also, something that might be like a tractor was parked in one field.”

“How far from the gate are you?” Scott asked Rush, who ignored him in favor of veering the kino more to the left. It appeared that he was following a dirt track.

“Rush!” Scott raised his voice and shook Rush's shoulder. “How many clicks out are you?”

Looking surprised to feel Scott's hand, Rush looked up briefly. “Twenty kilometers. Please don't talk to me right now.” The words were softly and politely spoken but his tone of voice was scathing.

Moving away from Rush, Scott motioned to James and David to follow him. “James, get the civilians back to the ship. Greer and I will set up a perimeter around the gate. General?” Scott hesitated, then said, “Would you guard Rush?”

David translated that to mean, _I'm not going to be responsible for getting a general killed out on a perimeter line from an alien attack._ But he nodded at Scott and took up his position, scanning the area. 

James joined Greer and Scott, the last of the civilians disappearing into the blue puddle of the gate. Teams of two were quickly dispatched in a wide circle around the gate. Rush continued watching the kino monitor, not offering to narrate what he was learning. 

Ten minutes later, a sharply drawn breath from Rush drew his attention. “What?” he threw at the scientist. 

Rush ignored him again, but he pulled his radio from his belt. “Destiny, this is Rush, come in. Are you seeing this on the console?”

“This is Johansen. Yes, we see it.”

Rush replied, “I'm going to zoom in. Where's the Colonel?”

“We're locating him. He's on a run and didn't take a radio.” Johansen sounded a little protective of Young, David thought. He tucked that thought away for a later time, remembering that same tone of concern back before she'd drugged David so that Young's body could rest. What the fuck was going on with Young now?

“This is fantastic,” Rush said, sounding awed. “Marvelous. This must be why Destiny chose this planet.”

“What are you seeing?” David shot at Rush. 

Predictably, the little bastard kept ignoring him. Loosing patience, David scanned the area quickly and then strode over next to Rush.

There on the monitor was another stargate, with what looked like a small town nearby.

Rush didn't acknowledge David's presence, but manipulated the controls until David was seeing a much closer view of the stargate.

It was seven sided, not a circle, and huge; the collection of shapes and lines that marked coordinates were like nothing he'd ever seen.

Rush said softly, “It's clearly intended for gate travel, but it's not Ancient. And I have to go there. We're gonnae need the shuttle.” 

* * *


	17. Discussions Personal and Professional

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tags were changed

The sound of his harsh breathing and the pounding of his boots against Destiny's decks were the only things accompanying Everett's thoughts. Destiny was quiet, still, as they floated in space, neither in FTL or in sublight.

Once the gate teams had left, he'd put TJ in charge of any minor problems that came up. The main task was going to be letting more crew out of stasis for foraging parties, if the teams on the planet were successful, and she needed to clear people anyway. 

He needed this time desperately. Just him, and his memories. Memories of his failed relationships. Emily. TJ. Caleb. Justin. Monica. His failing relationship, if it could even be called that. Nicholas. Not Doctor Rush, not his professional colleague, the bastard he'd bloodied and almost killed twice, who'd framed him, who'd tried to wrest control of Destiny from him, who had lied to him and the crew but Nicholas, the man he'd teased, touched, kissed, pushed up against walls and pinned to a bed. The man who against all odds actually had come to trust him to some degree. The man who could infuriate him by his sometimes callous behavior, who kept secrets from him and had endangered himself and others by his reckless behavior. The man who'd saved his life and thus demonstrated he actually meant what he said about ending their differences. The man his fascination with had edged into an unhealthy obsession mixed with desire and domination. 

He turned into the corridor that would take him past the control interface room, sweat soaking his workout shirt. He'd been given a wakeup call by Destiny, although he had no clue why or even if that had been the ship's intention.

Had the ship influenced the decisions he'd made in the simulation or had he freely made those choices? He had no idea. 

_You don't want to help me, you want to control me,_ Rush had told him once; Everett had denied that to him initially, but Rush apparently had more insight into their relationship than he did. Because as he'd been thinking back over their interactions since they'd met, maybe there had been times when he'd wanted exactly that, even before he'd explored that hypothesis when he'd been angry about Rush keeping another secret from him. When he'd pinned Rush against a wall and he'd seen that Rush had been aroused by that as much as Everett had been by doing it to him.

He'd even touched upon those feelings to Rush one or twice even before that. How having Rush in his arms and knowing exactly where he was and what he was doing had been such a gratifying sensation, how it had thrilled him, because it had felt like Rush was surrendering to him. Submitting. He had felt triumphant about that, hadn't he? Had liked that taste of domination, had wanted more. 

He cringed a little internally, thinking about how he'd told Rush he'd strip him forcefully to find out if he had been beaten up recently. Ordering him to eat supper with him nightly, so they could talk about their daily progress. He could have handled both of those situations differently. He should have worked more on gaining Rush's trust so he would voluntarily talk to him about problems he was having. He could have thrown out that he'd like to meet daily with Rush, and let the other man decide how that could best be accomplished. And it wasn't just about being briefed, because that was a legitimate command need, but because he wanted to see Rush eat a meal. Rush wasn't a kid. If he wanted to skip his dinner because he was tied up with working or deep into his mathematics, well, like Rush had told him, he wasn't going to starve to death. 

Those times that he'd physically cared for Rush, when Rush was hypothermic or too dazed from sex – okay, so sex hadn't actually happened because it had been in the simulation, but he was counting it – or he'd given him neck massages, or had held him in bed so Rush couldn't initiate anything sexual, they'd been necessary. Rush had needed help in getting dressed and he had to eat and drink something warm to stave off his borderline hypothermia; they had needed to touch platonically so why not help him out with that massage since he was carrying so much tension in his knotted up muscles? 

He decided that those actions were okay. They were justified by the situation. But since he was being ruthlessly honest with himself, he had enjoyed caring for him like that and not in a nurturing way. There had been a smidgeon of sexual pleasure in taking charge of him. 

He thought back to other people and other times. He hadn't felt that way in any of the other situations where he'd helped his old gate team members when they'd been hurt or helped Emily when she had the flu or Justin when he'd broken both wrists and had needed Everett to help him in the bathroom. He'd had to strip the clothes off Caleb at least once a month when they'd been together, since Caleb would get smashed so easily. He'd suggest to Caleb that he should quit drinking for the night, when he started to get tipsy, but Caleb never listened. He could have forced Caleb to stop by hustling him out the party or bar, but he had never done that. He hadn't tried to control him at all. 

Worrying over TJ exposing herself to the ticks or going on gate missions while pregnant, he'd listened to her about what she could handle. He hadn't ordered her to comply with what he wanted, and he could have benched her. He hadn't wanted to try to control her at all. 

Rush, somehow Rush was different. 

So, okay, as usual, Rush was ten steps ahead of him in figuring things out, but he would catch up. He would think back over what he had learned from his other relationships that had tanked and see if he had made the same mistakes again, or if he'd forged new territory in screwing things up. 

One thing he was determined about, though, was that his messy personal life was not going to affect his command. He was not going to hide in his room behind locked doors; he would not let his officers cover for his lack of presence to the crew or abandon his responsibilities like he had the last time Destiny had screwed with his mind. Matthew and TJ and James and Greer did not deserve that burden, not while he was still alive. 

He went to glance at his watch, to see if his estimate of nearly an hour of running was accurate, and stared blankly at his bare wrist for a moment. Oh, right. He'd given his watch to Rush. Had that been over the line Rush had drawn between them? _Stop being nice to me_ Rush had told him multiple times. Rush was afraid that Young's actions were based on a faulty premise, that the bond was influencing Everett to like him. More than just lusting for him, to want to feel his soft skin and rough beard, to draw those aroused sounds from him, see his pupils dilate and stroke his erection and watch him lose himself to passion, but being amused by him, wanting to make him smile, and enjoying talking to him and sharing experiences. 

_I don't believe in fairy tales,_ Rush had told him. He hadn't expected any warm feelings Everett had towards him to last. He'd wanted to minimize the emotional fallout once Everett had gone back to the way they'd been with each other before the pod. The man had been trying to protect himself from responding and then being shoved out into the cold. To no avail it seemed, because somehow during their week together Rush been seduced into wanting Everett. Liking him back. Rush had been trying very hard to not show Everett that, but he'd let enough things slip that Everett knew he, too, longed for them to really be with each other. Not to mention how he'd acted when he was sleepwalking. That was proof enough.

 _I trust you,_ Rush had said. He'd said it when Everett had rolled on top of him in bed and told him he knew he could get Rush to respond to him, when Rush said he didn't want to bind them together through sex. _I'm trusting you_ , he'd told Everett that time he'd deliberately pushed Rush up against a wall to see if he did like physically dominating him. It had surprised him – and Rush – that Rush had been turned on by that. Rush knew he'd let Everett fuck him. He trusted Everett to not give in, to protect him. _You'll look out for me, look after me,_ he'd told Everett when he was hypnotized, the trust implicit in the words. In the simulation Everett had made a mockery of that trust.

He'd learned to let Emily go, to make peace with his failed marriage. He could let go of the idea of Rush changing his mind about the bond. That was essential because deep down, or maybe not so deep down, Everett had been fine with the idea of the bond. He wanted to have a deep physical and emotional connection with someone who felt the same way about him. Rush could be that partner; working together, with him, had felt balanced. They complemented each other in a lot of ways. But if Rush was right, nothing about them could be trusted to be real. It was all the fault of the effect of sharing a neural network on their bodies and minds. 

Except he kept remembering the passion with which Rush had kissed him in the stasis pod. How he'd loved holding Rush in that enclosed space, feeling his skin, his hair, and how the honesty he'd seen in the other man's eyes had made a flood tide of arousal swamp him. 

So, maybe the seeds for a relationship were there, even before the bond had started to engage. It didn't matter. What mattered was that his willingness to ignore and discount what Rush had been telling him from the moment they stepped out of the pod had to stop. It was simple, really. Rush didn't want a sexual relationship with him, not if it was influenced by anything other than his own free will. Rush was the most independent person he'd ever met. But he wasn't immune to being swayed and he knew that about himself. It was why he'd asked for Evertt's help with this. And so far, Evertt hadn't one hundred percent committed to trying to honoring that request. Instead, at times his resolve would fail and he would find himself subverting that request.

The ship had evidently seen where his behavior was heading and maybe Destiny was trying to save him from himself, or save Rush from Everett. Maybe the ship knew that the intoxicating effect of the bond would fade and without a genuine basis for liking each other they'd end up hating each other. 

The ship knew about him and TJ, must know how he'd ignored the ramifications of getting involved with his subordinate until he'd finally realized how their relationship was harming her. There had always been a power imbalance between them, but he hadn't let that stop him. It wasn't even primarily sexual between them, she'd been like balm to a mortal wound. 

Rush wasn't his subordinate, he was more like a co-leader, but with Everett having the final word on decisions about the ship. Even when they'd been at each other's throats, Everett had needed Rush's input. Well, until he'd substituted Eli for Rush. He'd resented Rush's attitude, took it personally that Rush seemed to think everyone but him and one or two favored scientists were morons. These days, he didn't take it that way. Rush was Rush, and he did think that everyone was valuable for this mission. Everyone. Airmen and Marines and scientists and support staff. Everyone. Everett wasn't a brilliant scientist, and couldn't keep up with how fast Rush could think through a problem. So what? He had his own skill set and it complemented Rush's and Camile's. Everett was lucky to have Rush on board, and that old resentment had been gone for quite some time now. 

Well, he thought, as he ran through the nexus of several corridors meeting, taking in the curved walls of Destiny, the subtle lighting along the corridors, he and Rush would be on this ship together for a very long time. Hopefully. Aliens and Telford and ancient – in the truest sense of the word, meaning old and decrepit – tech non-withstanding. What was going to be his strategy?

He wasn't going to be friends with Rush. And how many times had he told himself that in the last few days? He had to really mean it this time, because he couldn't get that close to him and not start to slip up. He'd re-evaluate that option in a few months, maybe, if Rush asked for them to be friends. He probably wouldn't, even though he could use a close friend. 

God knows Everett wasn't the best at figuring out people. He never had been able to come up with quick accurate assessments; he needed time to study someone and think about what their actions and words meant, especially if the two didn't match up very well. But he thought he had a better handle on Rush now and it seemed to him that Rush had been lonely and touch starved, but hadn't really understood that about himself. He'd been vulnerable to Everett's attentions and touches, once he'd gotten over that reflexive shrinking away from him. It made him ache for Rush to think about why he'd been like that so much with other people. He'd been like that with Everett before their time in the stasis pod, hardly able to even tolerate an arm around his shoulder. 

No, wait. Rush had let him hold him, after that flashback of the Nakai, when the closed in shape of the pod had triggered him into feeling trapped in the Nakai water tank again. They hadn't progressed to making out or sharing their minds yet. Yes, Rush had let him inside his walls, but he shouldn't take advantage of that. Instead, he should help make sure Rush had more opportunities to get closer to other crew members, maybe that would help him feel less lonely. Maybe he would find someone to be with again, someone he could love and have a real relationship with, not this messed up dysfunctional tie between him and Everett. Something more healthy. Something based on his own desires and not meddled with by the ship. 

Everett would be civil, because having a good working relationship with his chief scientist was essential. But no more teasing, no more touching him, no need to have meals together, or play chess or listen to music or spend any recreational time together at all. This time he'd stick to his resolve. 

He'd teach him to fly the shuttle and he'd let Rush teach him about Destiny's systems; he couldn't get out of those without alerting the science team and Matthew that something had changed and probably most people would think it was Rush's fault. The sneaky, untrustworthy bastard must have pulled something new, because see how the Colonel is suspicious of him again. He wouldn't do that to Rush.

Please, he sent out a mental request to his chief scientist. Please don't pull any questionable new stunts or lie to the crew or suggest someone should die for the greater good. Please just do your work and get enough sleep and meet with the science team and don't have any more nightmares or flashbacks to being tortured. Please keep trusting me. Please tell me about the things you figure out and find, or if there's a problem. Please don't go back to how you were when we first landed on this rust bucket. We've made a lot of progress, you and me, since I beat the crap out of you the last time, and I don't want to lose that. Destiny and this crew deserve for us both to be doing our best with each other. 

He needed a standard, a rubric to make decisions regarding Rush. He would pick two crew members, say, oh, Brody and Spencer. He liked Brody a lot and he hadn't cared for Spencer, although he regretted that the man had committed suicide. So anything he felt like doing about Rush or for Rush he would ask himself if he would do the same thing for Brody and Spencer. It would have to be a yes for both of them. That should keep him treating Rush fairly. 

Keeping his distance on personal matters with Rush, or better yet, avoiding them altogether, that was what he needed to do. Integrating Rush with the crew – and that was a two way street -- was still vital to accomplish. But he'd make sure his interest in doing this was seen as purely professional. 

He felt marginally better with a plan worked out. He wasn't going to tell Rush about what had really happened in the simulation. He wasn't masochistic enough to welcome the look of disgust and horror on Rush's face if he learned how Everett had fucked things up so badly that he'd actually raped him. Going through it once already in the simulation had been enough.

There were probably going to be some sleepless nights ahead for him, contemplating the answers behind the two doors that symbolized his questions about Destiny's role in all of this. Door number one: Destiny had only provided the test, he had freely chosen his actions. That made him an unobservant asshole who made poor choices, but maybe that was better than the alternative. Door number two: Destiny had made his choices for him to show him where the path he'd been on about Rush would end; it had only seemed like he had rationalized away not insisting that Rush talk to him about his change of mind. If the ship could actually influence their decision making, that would make them the ship's puppets. That was a chilling thought. 

He ran on and on going back over his actions and thoughts and feelings about Rush and TJ and Emily. He'd been young, in college or high school with his other more serious relationships and they ended for various reasons relationships end when you haven't totally figured out who you are and what you want.

He felt empty. Sad. And he couldn't really explain this to anyone, that he was mourning something he never really had at all. He supposed that David would tell him he'd dodged a bullet by not being with Rush, that Camile would question the reality of his feelings. TJ would just look at him, concerned, but not pushing him to talk. Matthew would tell him that he was a good commander, watching him to see if he was back to drinking Brody's rotgot.

Greer, he'd probably offer to shoot Rush if it would help Everett feel better. He could picture the look on Rush's face if Greer did point another gun at him. That totally unimpressed disdainful expression of 'why are you wasting my time? Again.'

He didn't want Greer to shoot Rush. Hell, these days Greer didn't want to shoot Rush. The two of them had come around to working amicably together, having found common ground somehow. 

Everett would be okay. He would be fine. He would do his job, take care of this crew and maintain a polite effective working relationship with his chief scientist. Get on with the mission, as Rush would say. 

Deciding he'd run enough, he trotted to his quarters so he could get his uniform and head for the showers. By his reckoning the teams on the planet should be done with their initial survey and if they'd found decent food sources, the rest of the crew would have been released from stasis to help with harvesting. 

He'd just finished dressing from his shower, his hair still damp, when Becker almost bumped into him as he went back into the corridor.

“Sir, you're needed in the gate room,” Becker said, handing a radio to him. “Doctor Rush found a stargate.”

Everett said dryly, “There's two down there?” That would be a first. Maybe the seed ship had made a mistake. Ancients weren't infallible. Just the next thing to it. 

“An alien one, sir. It's easily twenty times the size of Destiny's gate. And there's some kind of town. Rush wants you to fly the shuttle down and meet them. He wants to go check it out.”

“Thank you, Becker.” He thumbed the radio. “Lieutenant Johansen, this is Young. I hear things just got interesting down on the planet. I'm on my way to the gate room. Give me a status report.”

* * *

**Eli's house. Boston**

His mom had fallen asleep about forty-five minutes into the first Hobbbit movie, but then, Eli had known that she wouldn't be able to stay awake. Epic battles, wizards, dwarves, trolls, hobbits, the ring of doom, a quest and a dragon, it had all been fantastic but there really wasn't any fantasy story that could hold her interest. She'd given it a good shot, though, popping popcorn for them and asking him questions about the story. She'd vaguely remembered his delight in the earlier trilogy of the _Lord of the Rings_ , but he could have asked to watch _Wheel of Fortune_ and she'd have been just as happy, as long as they could watch it together. Actually, she'd probably prefer to watch some stupid game show. What the hell, he thought. He'd watch her shows tomorrow with her. Although she might think he was a pod person instead of just acting like the considerate adult he had become. 

When she'd slid down to horizontal on their old worn out couch and had drifted off to sleep, he'd covered her with an afghan his nana had crocheted, just content to have her next to him while he caught up on the latest of Peter Jackson's obsession with Middle-Earth.

His mother worked so hard. She always had. These days she tired more easily, though. Eli had come by his stubbornness honestly, though, because his mom had refused to stop working at the The Boston Medical Center ER, although she had cut back her hours. No more fifty-plus hours a week like she'd done for at least the last ten years after Dad had bailed. The health care the Air Force had come through with had spared her from exhausting herself to pay her doctor bills, thank God. 

_Eli,_ she had breathed out, saying his name like all her prayers had been answered when his handler from the stones room had let him use his phone. She'd been so happy to know he was going to spend a few days with her when he'd called her from Washington. 

It was nice here, the room dim and everything from the vanilla scented air freshener to the pictures of his childhood on the walls feeling like home. His mom stirred on the couch next to him as he watched on the TV screen how Smaug rose into the sky, shaking off the molten metal coating his skin, twisting and turning, liquid gold scattering into the night sky like a galaxy of fireflies as he uttered such an epic line, that Eli paused the movie and rewound it. He listened to it with satisfaction, and then he paused the movie again.

Lowering his voice, he said, trying to sound as much like a dragon as he could, “I am fire. I am _Death._

Not bad. Then he scowled and hit play, watching the rest of the movie. Cool ending song, too. But once thought, he could not unthink what had crossed his mind when he'd said Smaug's line. And, borrowing Matt's favorite saying, _dang it_. He was on vacation. He was here to be with his mom. He didn't want to think about Destiny tonight, and he especially didn't want to think about her math wizard ship whisperer. 

Except he had pictured Rush with his wild man hair glaring at an enemy, fists balled up and shoulders thrown back, shouting Smaug's words with bone deep defiance. “I am _fire_. I am _Death_.

And yeah, the accent would make it all ten times cooler. 

Suddenly his own fists clenched hard. Rush wouldn't have said it out loud when he'd hunted down Simeon over rocks and hot sand for hours upon hours, but from what Greer and Matt had told him some version of the dragon's boast must have been fueling him. 

It wouldn't have been a boast, though. Not for Rush. It would have been a sacred oath. He'd heard how Rush had tricked Simeon with the stampede and when that Lucian Alliance bastard was injured and helpless, Rush had leveled his gun at him and shot him point blank.

Softly, he said, “I am fire. I am Death.” He'd been glad to hear what Rush had done. And jealous, because he had wanted to kill the bastard for ending Ginn's life. He'd also felt sick and conflicted because Eli Wallace wanting to take a life, that had upset the balance of the universe.

Colonel Young had tried to talk to him, to get him to see that for Eli, killing for revenge would be the wrong path. Like he was a Jedi master trying to guide a young Jedi knight. 

It didn't seem like taking that revenge had eased Rush's pain, either, so maybe the Colonel had been right. He seemed like a guy who'd had to walk a line between justice and revenge too many times; he had this kind of tired, weary wisdom that just radiated from him sometimes. Hard won self knowledge, and he didn't want Eli to become bitter and dark. Like, maybe, the Colonel had gone down that road and had managed to crawl back, hands and knees bloody with the effort. 

He shuddered. “I am fire. I am Death,” he whispered and looked down to see his mother's warm, kind eyes watching him.

“Sweetheart,” she said, pushing herself up, “I think it's time we talked.”

“Yeah,” he said, wanting suddenly to tell her all the things he'd shoved down inside of him. Ginn. Lisa's blindness because he couldn't pull off figuring out how to unlock a _frickin_ door. Rush. Young. Rush and Young. How it had felt watching Chloe slip into being something she wasn't. How he'd doomed the crew to life on Novus in that other timeline by his idea of dialing when they were in a star. Miscalculating the Colonel's jump from the Ursani ship to Destiny, and how he'd let everyone think the Colonel had just jumped a little too soon. 

“Yeah, Mom. I'd like that.”

* * *

 

When he came down to the kitchen after waking up it was practically noon, but hey, he and Mom had stayed up talking till three in the morning. He'd hurried through a shower after rolling out of his old bed because it was just plain weird to run a bar of soap over Telford's body, although his GI Joe haircut made it easy to wash his hair. Telford's hair. Yeah, weird. It was better to just not think about it too much.

His mom was making pancakes – real, honest to god pancakes made with real flour and eggs and milk, nothing like those things on the ship that Becker tried to pass off as pancakes – and smiled at him when he sat down at the counter, then looked bemused at his T-shirt. 

“Wanted dead _and_ alive, Schrodinger's cat?” she said. “Somehow, I don't think that shirt belongs to Colonel Telford, does it?”

Eli glanced down at the shirt covering Telford's awesome six pack. The picture of an old fashioned wanted poster with a really put upon looking cat was pretty funny, he'd thought, when he'd grabbed it and a couple of other math and physics joke shirts. “Technically, it belongs to General O'Neill, I guess. The guy who escorted me here used O'Neill's card to let me get some civilian stuff. We stopped at the Mall in Pentagon City before getting on the Interstate. You'd like it there, Mom. Lots of cool stores. It's where I picked up the movies, too. But we can do whatever you want to do today. Watch game shows, go out, anything at all.” He drank the orange juice in front of him, and wow. That was so good. 

His mom slid four pancakes onto a plate and put it in front of him. “What about your friends, Eli? You don't want to play video games with them? I know you wouldn't be allowed to talk to them or show them how you look right now, but I know you must miss gaming with them.”

Pouring streams of maple syrup and melted butter onto the pancakes, Eli shrugged. “You know, when you've fought in real space battles, the whole video game simulation stuff kind of pales. And I'd rather spend the time with you, anyway. My gamer friends, we weren't that close, you know?”

She laid a hesitant hand on his shoulder. Eli knew it weirded her out about the whole body swapping thing, and he couldn't blame her one bit. She said, “You've made good friends on Destiny, though. So many people talked to me when I visited there, about you.”

“Really? What'd they say?” He started in the plate of pancakes. He'd probably dream about them when he went back to the ship. 

She moved back to the stove and flipped over the next batch of yummy goodness. “Chloe said you were her best friend and that you'd saved her life, carried her to safety when the ship was attacked. Matthew talked about how smart you were and that everyone knew you could be trusted, especially Colonel Young. Ronald said I should be proud of you. That you were a good man. A strong man.”

He drank more orange juice and said, “I was a kid when we ended up on Destiny. Being there, well, I've grown up. Mom, I wish you could see the footage from Novus. You would have been really proud of that me. I helped found a civilization. I wrote textbooks and taught kids. I had children, and I think I was a good father. I didn't abandon them, Mom.”

She came to his side and put her hands on his face, framing him. “Eli, I don't need to see how that other version of you turned out to know that you'd end up doing good things and taking care of your family. I've always had faith in you.”

“Even when I wouldn't clean my room or go to job interviews?” Eli said, making it sound like a joke, but actually... he really wanted to know, because back then, he'd just felt like he was stuck and a waste of everyone's time. Especially his mom's, but he couldn't seem to get himself motivated to do much of anything except be awesome in make believe worlds.

“Yes. I knew you'd figure yourself out.” She let go of his face and swatted him on the arm. “Eventually,” she said, teasing him a little. “Although I have my doubts about how straightened up your room on the ship is.” She smiled at him and he laughed.

“Yeah, well, Colonel Young told me once or twice to get my room picked up. He's such a mom sometimes.”

His mom looked kind of fascinated so after he'd forked more delicious pancakes into his mouth and enjoyed every bit of them, he went on. “You should hear him talk to Rush when the guy's done something kind of dumb, health wise. I mean Rush could barely walk after having chest surgery to take out that alien transmitter – you remember when I told you about the Nakai – and the Colonel was all, 'You look like you're going to fall over dead, why aren't you in the infirmary?' when Rush insisted on working anyway.”

His mom slid four more pancakes onto Eli's plate. “That was the surgery where you built an instrument with a camera so that nice medic? TJ? Could operate?”

“Yep.” He finished off his orange juice in two gulps. “Yeah, TJ. She's the best.” He reached for the syrup and melted butter because there were ratios that needed to be maintained. Probably he could work out an algorithm for the optimal amount of fat and sugar to carbohydrates for the perfect plate of pancakes. Or, you know, he could just do a heuristic and come up with a ballpark figure. Or just eyeball it. Not everything in the world had to be math related, no matter what Rush thought.

“Doctor Rush must be very strong-willed,” his mom said. When he raised his eyebrows, not sure what she was talking about, she said, “Working when he wasn't recovered yet from an operation.”

Understatement of the _year_ , Eli thought. Out loud, he said, “They both are strong-willed. Colonel Young and Rush. Clash of the Titans sometimes.”

Taking his glass, his mom refilled it. “So Colonel Young and Doctor Rush don't get along?”

Eli shrugged. “It's complicated between them. Kind of like that movie, _Enemy Mine_? Two enemies, one human, one this cool reptile species, get stranded on this planet and have to learn to get along. I mean, the human guy even ends up raising the other guy's child, because he gave birth and then kicked the bucket. ” Except the human and alien in that movie had become as close as brothers, not lovers. 

His mom looked at him with her usual expression when he talked about Sci-fi movies, then turned back to the stove and flipped over the next batch of pancakes.

“They've saved each other's lives, you know. And fought with each other and there's a lot of trust issues. But...” A lot of sexual chemistry, but that wasn't his to share, not even with his mom. 

She turned around, and waited for him to talk.

“Another time when the Colonel was such a mom was when Rush snuck off by himself and sat in the neural interface chair and was in a coma for like, four days.”

“That chair sounds very dangerous. You wouldn't...” his mom hesitated, a worried look on her face. He'd told her a little about the neural interface chair before. He knew she didn't really understand about it, but she'd caught on about how risky using it was.

“No, Mom, don't worry. I'm not going to sit in it without telling people what I'm doing, without backup and a way to do it safely.”

“But Doctor Rush did?”

“Yeah,” Eli said, “and Colonel Young read him the riot act about not being such a lone gunman and being such an idiot for taking chances with his health like that and asked him did he want to end up with a permanent heart condition?” Eli grinned at her. “Greer told me about it; he was in the infirmary recovering from giving Dale Volker a kidney. The Colonel must have thought Greer was asleep. Too bad Rush was still out of it and didn't hear a word. And when he did wake up, he was so miserable I don't think the Colonel had the heart to chew him out again. I did though. That was when I'd had to lock Ginn and Doctor Perry into quarantine so we could get him back.”

His mom turned off the stove and stepped over to where he was perched on a stool at the island counter and took his hand. “I'm so sorry, Eli. Ginn, she was really special, wasn't she?”

Suddenly the pancakes felt like lead in his belly. He'd told her about what happened to Ginn, and how they had become friends but he hadn't told her that he'd been falling for her, hard. “Ginn being special? Yeah. She was. I think we could have been really good together. You would have liked her, Mom. She was tough as nails but really sweet and honest and she'd had a hard life. She was so, so smart and the Lucian Alliance, they blackmailed her into working for them so her family wouldn't be killed. She was really happy to get away from them.”

He couldn't talk then, and felt his eyes getting wet. 

His mom squeezed his hand. “Eli, I would like nothing more than to watch movies with you at home this afternoon, and then maybe we could go out to eat and take a walk. How about I make you some chocolate chip cookies, okay?”

He squeezed her hand back, loving her so much. He used his free hand to wipe his eyes dry. “I'd like that. I'd like that a lot.”

* * *

After hanging out with his mom and watching the Avengers movie and some of the other Marvel comics based movies he'd missed, they had gone out to eat at The Boston Sail Loft. The last time he'd been there both his parents had been with him. Before mom got sick and dad took off. 

Their waiter must have thought his mom was his date, from his tone of voice and choice of words. Ugh. It creeped Eli out, but seeing his mom smiling and enjoying herself was worth the ick factor. Telford was probably close to her age, anyway. 

By the time they'd ordered dessert, after some really great fish and chips and clam chowder, the waiter was looking more puzzled than anything else at them. Guess the mother and son vibes came through no matter what Eli looked like.

They'd talked again when they'd come home, but this time Eli was doing the questioning. He wanted to know how his mom was doing with her job, her meds, if she was spending time with friends, how the Air Force was treating her, about the support group that met once a month for the families of Destiny's crew, those who were in on the secret. His mom and Sharon, Camile's wife, had become pretty close. 

“Sharon and I wish we could be with you and Camile, you know. On Destiny,” his mom had said, stirring a cup of herbal tea as they sat at the kitchen island. 

“Mom. It's--” He stopped himself. He couldn't say to his mother that it was dangerous. She didn't need him to confirm her anxiety about that.

“Dangerous. We know.” With a slightly exasperated tone, she said, “Eli, I'm an ER nurse. You think I don't take a risk everyday I go to work that something dangerous could happen there?”

“Well, that makes me feel great about your job. How about changing to taking care of sick babies?” 

His mom looked at him a little sadly and shook her head. “That's the most heartbreaking job in the hospital. No, I like the ER. I'm just saying that I know, Sharon knows, that Destiny's crew is in dangerous situations a lot. We want to be with our families, and we can handle the danger, the poor food. And TJ could use some experienced help. There probably isn't anything I haven't seen in the last twenty-five years at our hospital's ER. We're a major trauma center.”

“But you're sick. What about your own medical care?” Thank god her T-cell count hadn't dropped any lower since her bought with pneumonia, he thought. Watching his mom in that hospital bed, sick and feeling so defeated, so depressed, had been awful.

“I won't let myself get run down again. And if they do make that wormhole? That way to travel through space so people and equipment can be sent to the ship? Then they can send along plenty of my meds,” his mom said, and he wondered if there was even a remote chance Homeworld Command would authorize family members to join Destiny.

He scrubbed a hand over his mouth, looking at her, deciding he would never want to risk her on Destiny. “If they ever get a stable wormhole established back to Earth, I could come home instead.”

“But you don't want to, do you?” His mom might be the world's worst when it came to Sci-fi, but she'd always been shrewd about figuring him out. “Being on the ship has stretched your mind like nothing else ever has, and you're doing good work, Eli. Doctor Rush and Colonel Young both told me that.”

“Colonel Young, that I can believe. But Rush? What exactly did he say? All he ever tells me is that I have great potential.” That still kind of rankled. He was smarter than Rush, and they both knew it. 

His mom nodded. “Yes, he did say that and that your work was excellent, that you were a genius and that your help was invaluable. That really, without you Destiny wouldn't have survived. He said I should be proud of you.”

“Huh.”

“He seemed like a very nice man.”

Eli choked on the Coke he was drinking. After he was done spluttering, he said, incredulously, “Rush? You were talking about Rush, right? Not, oh, Colonel Young?”

“He seemed very nice too, but no, I meant Doctor Rush.”

Eli rolled his eyes, because, seriously? “Our descendants on Novus, some of them thought he was a demon and could, like, rip out people's souls.”

“They did?” His mom sipped her tea, not very perturbed by what he'd told her. 

“Yeah, and you know, they weren't wrong. Rush is not nice, Mom. He's brilliant and I kind of like him anyway, but he's cranky and demanding, and lies, and can be a real jerk. He's done some bad things. But he's done some good things too. He's, to quote Colonel Young, 'A lot of work.'”

“Well, I'm sure you know him better, but he was very nice to me. So maybe there's more to him than the things you just said.” She finished her tea and put the mug in the sink. Eli got up and tossed the soda can in the recycling bin.

“Actually, I'm supposed to find out more about him,” he admitted. “Chloe asked me to check on some things from before he joined Homeworld Command.”

“Like what?” she asked, busying herself with tidying up the kitchen, wiping off counters, putting the box of peppermint tea away.

“He was a professor of mathematics at Berkeley. So I'll start there. Tomorrow, though. So, time for one more movie before heading to bed?” he asked hopefully.

“Another one about aliens and Norse gods, and that poor Bruce Banner?”

He didn't know why his mom was so sympathetic to the Hulk, but whatever. “No, this is a western. It's really old, so you might have seen it before. I picked it because it's the only movie Rush ever admitted to liking, and it's one of the Colonel's favorites, too. Something they both like, hey, I gotta check it out.”

“I'll make some popcorn. What is it?”

“ _Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid._ ”

So they watched it, and his mom even stayed awake till the end. Huh, he thought, as the movie ended. Two guys who were best friends with each other, through everything. They'd died together, too. The Bolivian Army reminded him uncomfortably of the Nakai, with their relentless pursuit of the two outlaws. Rush wasn't too fond of rules, so he could see why a movie that portrayed outlaws favorably might appeal to him, but he wasn't sure why the Colonel liked it so much. 

Guess he'd have to think about it. He wondered if the Colonel and Rush wanted that kind of friendship. He wondered, too, if they were tempted to see each other as the other half of that partnership. 

* * *

Eli felt a little guilty that he wasn't subjecting Telford's body to the no doubt rigorous exercise regime it was used to every day, but not enough to leave his mother's kitchen and go for a long run or do push-ups. Nope. He patted his belly, well, Telford's belly and watched his mom making lasagna. Tomorrow afternoon he would have to switch back with Telford, and he didn't want to lose a minute of spending time with his mom. That, and going for long runs never was an interest of his, although Matt was always trying to get him to join the civilian exercise group. The Colonel had stopped making it mandatory after the mutiny, and anyway Eli had important work to do all the time. And his documentary needed constant attention, although most of the crew thought of it as his hobby. It was extremely important, too. Hey, they were all still alive because he'd been filming on the planet of death by demon lizards. Hobby his ass. 

His mom dumped some ground beef in a skillet and turned on the stove, then walked over to where he'd set up his laptop on the counter and perched on the stool next to him. She looked at the screen and then turned to him.

“What are you doing? Are you thinking of going back to school somehow?” 

Eli stopped reading and shrugged. “Not really, although I think the elders of our little tribe are trying to work something out with Homeworld Command. Get all the Ph.D's on board to do classes so the crew who want to can get their undergrad degrees or graduate degrees.”

“Oh, Eli, that would be wonderful. I always hoped you would finish your education.” 

“Yeah, I'm not so into it.” He glanced over and saw his mom was narrowing her eyes at him. Ut, oh. He decided he'd better divert her. Quickly. Before he got emotionally blackmailed into promising to take classes at Destiny University. Cool name, though. 

“No, uh, I'm checking out how his students rated Doctor Rush. You can pick your prof and then give them a score on how well they taught. And if you thought they were hot.”

“Why?”

“Because Colonel Young asked the science team to give him a hand about working with Rush?” His mother's perplexed expression made him add, “It's Chloe's project, really, and she asked me to look him up. _And_ ” he said, drawing the word out, “I've got a bet riding on the hotness factor, which I'm going to win; and I don't care what Chloe says, because Rush just isn't hot. Not even warm.”

His mother raised her eyebrows and smiled this smirky kind of smile. “Care to bet with me? Because I'd vote yes.”

“Mom. Gross.” Looking at her dubiously, he said, “What did you have in mind?”

“I win, you do the dishes. You win, I'll do them.”

“Deal.” They shook hands; he'd help her with them anyway when he won. No way would Rush be rated hot.

It was only the work of a few seconds to find Rush at UC Berkeley on the website. 

He groaned and his mother laughed. There on Rush's webpage was a flaming red hot chili pepper. 

“I don't get it,” he complained. 

His mother patted his arm. “I know.” She got a bemused look on her face. “I think it's his eyes, so intent and dark. And his voice, that accent. And his hair, although I suppose it was shorter when he was teaching. I wouldn't say he was handsome, not like Colonel Young, but he's very attractive.”

“Mom. Stop.” 

She didn't though. Thoughtfully, she said, “He's not exactly cute, even though he's short and trim and has dimples. It's how he carries himself. Does he smile or laugh very much? Because the potential is there, if he would relax or maybe when he's asleep.”

“My ears are starting to bleed,” Eli whined. “Seriously, I'm having this conversation with my mother about Rush being hot and possibly cute? Ugh.”

“He's very passionate about Destiny, isn't he? The mission he discovered?” she said, musingly.

“Yes. Can you _please_ stop talking about Rush and passion in the same sentence?”

She patted him again on his arm. “You be sure to tell Chloe that I said she picked the right side.” 

“Still gross, Mom.”

She laughed and slid off the stool. “So what did his students think of him?”

He skimmed over the first few entries and had to grin at some of them. “Overall he got a 4.2 out of 5. Um, comments. Do you want to hear them?”

“You've got me interested now, so yes. Read them out loud so I can keep cooking.” She started chopping up an onion, the pungent smell wafting over to him. 

He bet Becker would kill to have onions on board the ship. And ketchup and mustard and most of the spices that were in arm's reach in his mom's kitchen. God, he was never going to take oregano for granted ever again. 

“Eli?” his mom asked, and he stopped his mental meandering.

“Okay. Here we go. 'Hard tests. | He's hot, but doesn't seem to know or care. | Don't miss his lectures because he doesn't just teach from the textbook. | Knows his subject matter and explains it well. | Good luck finding a place to sit in his office, he keeps stacks of books on the chairs. Also, he tacks up notes everywhere on the walls. It's kind of weird. | Lectures are concise and informative. | Doesn't ramble. | Won't accept excuses for not turning in work. | He probably won't remember your name. He's sort of polite but can be mean sounding at the same time. I think it's hard to earn his respect. | Doesn't seem to have much of a sense of humor. | Don't take this class looking for an easy A. | If he's angry (apparently at the administration, from what the class could overhear) his glare could melt lead. | He works hard and he expects you do do the same. | Kind of a hot mess with the stubble and jeans and his rolled up sleeves and needing a hair cut. | He's brilliant. | Going into his office is like entering the cave of math, with all the problems he's got on whiteboards and scribbles on post-its everywhere. For a guy who's so knowledgeable about computers it seems strange. | If you're looking for sympathy go to his TA; he won't give you any. | Hardest math class I ever took, and I'm a math major. | He gives the most awkward _You have great potential_ speech ever. | If you have trouble following his lectures go to his office hours and bring decent coffee instead of an apple.'” 

Eli snorted. “Oh, this one is so, so true. 'Don't ask stupid questions. He'll answer them but he'll give you a look that says you're an idiot for not paying attention.'” 

His mom stirred the sizzling meat in the skillet. “Do you think he's a good teacher? I mean, he taught you Ancient, didn't he?”

“I mostly taught myself with the database, but yeah. He can explain things pretty well. He made a series of lessons for the crew about the bridge systems. They were really well done.”

He stopped at an another entry. “Oh, this one is interesting. This girl says, 'Don't bother trying to flirt your way into a better grade. He doesn't know what you're doing and he's really, really in love with his wife.' Another one says pretty much the same thing, except it was written by a guy.”

“It must be very hard on him to be apart from his wife,” his mom said.

“Brody told me his wife died a few months after he joined Homeworld Command.”

“Oh. Poor man.”

“He never talks about her.” 

His mom put a package of wide noodles into a pot of boiling water and Eli sniffed the air, smelling the cooked meat and tomato sauce. Real food. He'd lost weight on board Destiny and he was okay about that, he figured he'd be healthier, but damn. They'd all almost starved at times there, and most of the meals were boring and bland, even the ones that had enough calories. It wasn't Becker's fault, but it was hard to get excited about eating mush three times a day. He was really looking forward to eating his mom's lasagna tonight.

Eli looked over at her. “He taught undergrads and grad students at Berkeley, but I bet he was more of a researcher; the school is known for its math department. I'm going to look up what he was publishing after supper. Which smells great, by the way. I really miss your cooking.”

His mother gave him an amused, small knowing smile and he hastily added, “And you, of course.”

He turned back to the computer screen and scrolled down. Most of the comments were just variations on what he'd already read but he stopped, puzzled, at one of the early ones. 

_He's got a reputation of being difficult to work with, I hear, but he's a good teacher. Really hard tests, though. He's a great musician, probably could play professionally if he wanted. I love to go to the sessions down at O'Michaels and listen to him and his wife, Gloria, play with their group of friends. She's a classic violinist with the San Francisco Symphony and the rest of their group is a mixture of academics and her colleagues. They like to mix it up with folk, blues, acoustic rock once a week. Sometimes they'll have actual shows but the cover price isn't too steep._

It perplexed him to learn that Rush was in to music like that since he didn't even hum under his breath on Destiny. Eli's curiosity was piqued. He was going to pull on this thread.

His mother began grating up mozzarella cheese as he began a whole new series of searches with multiple browser windows. By the time she slid the lasagna into the oven he'd learned quite a bit about Gloria Rush and her career and her death. She'd died of cancer. By the time the lasagna was pulled out of the oven, steaming and bubbling over with excruciatingly delicious smells, he'd unraveled more about Rush and his research, the universities he'd worked for and his talent for music.

There were even some YouTube videos of Rush and his wife and their friends playing together. Some were shows they'd put on that had been taped. Some were just bits of their sessions at O'Michaels, one was from a music party held at a friend's house.

His mom started putting a salad together as he brought up a long video that was of a session, but also was tagged as interviews. 

The sound of a violin and a whistle, a guitar and a mandolin, a banjo and some low string instrument, and the beat of a drum, traveled through the kitchen and his mother came over to his side. The screen was dark, just the music playing for a moment and his mother started tapping her foot. The vidder had used a cheesy special effect because the picture began as a dot and widened until the entire group of seven people in the back of a room were shown. Some of the musicians were standing up, but two were sitting on the table of a booth. Rush was years younger, but his hair was falling into his eyes just like always. The music was infectious, lively, sounded Celtic, and that wasn't his favorite thing to listen to, but this was well done. Rush was... Rush was totally into the music. Eli had seen that look of concentration, of losing himself to his math or research on Destiny a lot. He watched now, bemused, as Rush did a solo on a tin whistle, and then stepped back to let a pretty blonde with a violin step forward, her hair caught up in a messy twist, to do her solo. 

He listened to her wield her violin like it was part of her. Wow, she was great. He recognized her from pictures he'd found on the internet. That was Gloria, Rush's wife. 

“Oh, my. Listen to them, they're really good. Oh, I see Doctor Rush. What is this, Eli?” His mom slid onto the stool, listening.

“Rush playing music with friends. The violinist is his wife. I don't think anybody on Destiny has a clue he likes music, um, except maybe Colonel Young. I just remembered they were listening to Rush's IPod when we last recharged in a star.”

They watched each band member get their turn to shine, then they all came together again. Rush and Gloria faced each other and Eli had the feeling that the only thing in the entire room they were aware of was each other. He felt a bit like a voyeur, to be honest, as they played their instruments like it was a gift to the other one. 

The song ended to clapping and whistling from the unseen audience, and Eli could see the moment the spell of the music lifted for Rush. He almost looked startled to realize where he was. Gloria smiled at him and stepped close, whispered something in his ear that put a slow grin on his face. 

He looked. God, he looked happy. It made Eli feel kind of wrenched, to be honest. Rush must have been devastated when his wife died, because he was still mostly a wreck of a human being. Eli couldn't ever remember seeing him look like this on the ship. Sometimes he'd smile, but it was usually a smug kind of look, or a smirk or just the hint of amusement. He'd seen him look awed, seen him look relieved, seen him totally fascinated, seen him dazed and devastated and with the Colonel he'd seen him caught in whatever those dynamics had been between them when Young had pushed him up against the wall. 

With Doctor Perry, he'd been content and off in their own little world. Maybe this is where they would have ended up, with this same relaxed happiness that radiated off him in the video, if somehow the barriers of her being on Earth and him on the ship could be overcome. Maybe not, though. Something had gone wrong in the simulation Rush had been enticed into entering with Doctor Perry. Ginn hadn't been able to explain it beyond a hint, but whatever it was seemed to have been pretty serious and had been the cause of Rush being stuck there. 

The clapping died down and Rush exchanged his tin whistle for a violin as the guitarist spoke to the crowd. “This is an old favorite of fiddle and banjo players alike. Jamie's on the banjo, I'm Steve, Constance is on mandolin, Mary on the bodrahn, Toni, she's on the cello. And for those of you who have come to see us for the first time, Gloria plays the violin, but Nick plays the fiddle.”

Rush raised his eyebrows and then he and Gloria started things out with a semi-slow tune that had Eli wondering why the guy had said that. 

His mom cocked her head, listening. “I know this song.” She started humming along with the music. On screen, Rush stepped closer to the mic and started singing while still playing the violin. 

_Angeline the baker, lives on the village green_  
The way I always loved her, beats all you’ve ever seen  
Angeline the baker, Angeline I know  
Should have married Angeline, twenty years ago.” 

He sang a couple more lyrics and then he kicked the tempo up and damn. Rush was good. His bow flew on the strings, his fingers fast and sure and he was practically dancing while fiddling, his boots stamping against the wooden floor. Gloria wasn't doing what he was, she was there, sure, carrying the tune, but Rush had taken charge of this number like he would take control of the bridge or the control interface room when he would walk in. The crowd started to whoop and holler, clapping hard. The banjo player was grinning so hard, and the mandolin player had closed her eyes while she played, and all the band members seemed really caught up with Rush's momentum.

When Rush slowed things down, he sang the lyrics again, but this time the entire band sang the last part of the refrain. It was catchy, and Eli found himself singing along by the time the number was done. He hit pause.

“They look like they're having a lot of fun,” his mom said. “Can you make me a CD of their music?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Doctor Rush sings really well. Did you know that?” His mom said, pushing herself up. She went back to chopping up carrots and broccoli and dumped them into the salad bowl.

“No. Just another thing Rush kept to himself,” Eli grumbled, and he didn't know why it irked him that Rush had kept quiet about his musical skills.

His mom gave him a sharp glance. “Was he obliged to tell you?”

Eli squirmed. His mom was using her, 'think twice before you answer, young man,' voice. “Nooo. Of course not. It's just that he rarely shares anything about himself and... and we'd like to know him better, I guess. He doesn't sing on Destiny, and he could. I mean, we have Destiny choir even if we don't have any musical instruments. Brody's known him since Rush joined the SGC and he told us that after Rush's wife died he just moved into Cheyenne mountain. Brody would have heard if Rush played around with music there or on Icarus, and he'd have told us.”

“He must have his reasons for giving it up. Surely it's not too hard to guess maybe why?” His mother glanced back at the frozen monitor screen, tipping her head slightly. Eli looked. Rush's wife had slipped an arm around his waist and he had pulled her close, a frozen image of intimacy.

“You think he stopped because Gloria Rush died? Out of grief?”

“I don't know, Eli. It's certainly possible. Losing someone you love can make it very painful to revisit things that remind you of them. I couldn't stand to go into your room, you know, when I didn't know the truth. It made me cry every time, seeing your posters and your video games.”

Eli winced. He hadn't been able to look at the equations he and Ginn had worked on without missing her terribly. 

“You're probably right.” Eli wondered if maybe Rush had stopped playing music or singing because he was punishing himself. He'd done something like that before, from what Colonel Young had told him and Matt. Wouldn't let himself figure out the final clues to the ninth chevron because he didn't think he deserved it, for some unstated reason, and until the Colonel had asked him about it while Rush was under his self-induced hypnotism, Rush hadn't had a clue he'd been sandbagging himself.

“Supper's ready,” his mom said. “Why don't you let the music play while we eat?”

For an answer he hit play, and then grabbed potholders to carry the lasagna over to the table.

* * *

His mom had offered to help him with the dishes, but Eli had waved her off; she'd gone to take a shower and put on pajamas, since they were going to watch the rest of the movies he'd bought. That O'Neill had bought. He'd bring them back to Homeworld Command and leave them for other crew members when they used the stones.

Besides, he'd lost the bet fair and square. His only consolation was going to be the look on his fellow losers' faces when he reported back to the Rush Focus Group For The Benefit Of All The Crew, But Especially Colonel Young, that Rush had indeed been considered hot by his students. What the hell did they have in the water over there at UC Berkeley, anyway?

He was listening to the interviews of the session players while he loaded up the dishwasher. He'd learned that Constance was also a math professor in Rush's department and Jamie played in the San Francisco Symphony on the oboe and that it was Gloria who got the credit for pulling this little group together. 

He stopped working when the filmmaker cornered Rush. He wanted to see if this guy was more successful in getting Rush to talk than Eli had been. Like ever, unless he didn't know he was being recorded. Their discussion about ascension on the planet of deadly lizards came to mind. But to actually interview him, all Rush would do would be to stare at the camera and then shake his head and walk off.

The guy holding the camera, which Eli had yet to see what he looked like, said, “Nick, you're a math professor at UC Berkeley and married to Gloria Rush, who I understand is one of the best violinists for the San Fran Symphony. What can you tell us about yourself and your musical preferences?”

Rush smiled at him and said, “Not much,” and slid away over to Steve, who was getting out a pack of cigarettes. The camera followed them as they went out a side door to what Eli assumed was an alley.

Wow, Eli felt so vindicated. Apparently Rush just hated to be interviewed. The only difference had been Rush had actually smiled at this guy while Eli got glares of disdainful mistrust laced with the silent impatience of _why are you wasting my time, your time, everyone's time._

The interviewer barked out an incredulous sort of laugh. “Okay then, let's see what his fellow musicians can tell us about the elusive Doctor Nicholas Rush.”

The guy went on interviewing the other musicians and then would ask them about Rush, as they sat around a large table, drinking varied forms of alcohol. 

“He never wants to talk about himself, so don't take it personally that he walked away,” Constance, short, cute, dark-haired, said. “He does that in our faculty meetings, too, sometimes. And he'll find some reason he has to leave, if he's asked where he's going. Irritates the department head to no end, but Nick has very little patience for being cooped up with other people.”

There was laughter from the rest of the group, and heads nodding in agreement.

When Constance was asked about Rush's music, she said, “He's got more natural talent than anyone I've ever seen for learning new music, new instruments, new concepts. He's inventive and half the time the rest of us just try to keep up when he starts doing harmonies or some variation of the tune. He can play every instrument in this room pretty decently, but he loves his tin whistle and the fiddle the most.”

“Nicholas feels the music as deeply as he does his mathematics. Honestly, it doesn't matter to him if we have an audience or not. Some people thrive with interacting with the crowd, but not my husband,” Gloria said, smiling graciously at the camera. “For him, it's the dance of notes from the instruments and how he can soar.”

Steve came back inside and sat down in a chair, reaching gratefully for a bottle of beer Jamie pushed over to him. “Thank you, I'm parched. Gloria, Nick asked if you would step outside for a moment,” he'd said, interrupting her interview. After she'd walked away towards the door, he winked at the camera. “Pair of lovebirds, those two. You watch when they come back in, you'll see. Gloria, she might even talk him into saying something for your documentary.” The interviewer asked if they'd enjoyed their smoke break. Steve took another long pull from the bottle then said, “Nasty habit, cigarettes. I wish I could stop. Nick, he doesn't smoke anymore. Quit for Gloria, I believe, when they got married.” 

“Nick got voted to be our main vocalist even though he argued strenuously against it. He's got a great voice, which the rest of us don't,” Jamie said, during his interview. “And, his memory is right on the money. He can remember the lyrics to every song we play. He's got a great ear, perfect pitch. He can read music, but usually he doesn't have to. All he needs is to hear something once, and he's got it. He can play it or sing it. All I can say is that the music world's loss is the math world's gain.”

“I hope Nick never hears this interview,” Mary said, chuckling. “You guys know he'd hate it.”

“I hope he does,” Toni said, reaching over to bring Mary's hand up for a quick kiss on the knuckles. “And I want to be around to see the look on his face. He doesn't know what to do with a compliment, but all the same, he deserves to hear them.”

Rush and his wife came back in hand in hand. Eli noticed that Rush's shirt was partly unbuttoned now and his hair looked like he'd just gotten up out of bed; Gloria was smiling self-consciously and her hair was loose. Eli was way smarter than most rocket scientists, so yeah. Make out session in the alley. Gloria gave a small wave to the band as they walked past them, but she and Rush sat at their own table as far from the group as possible. He held her hand across the table, though, and didn't seem to notice that there was a camera trained on him. Gloria did, he could tell, but she didn't give the guy filming away. 

The interviewer had been persuaded to leave him alone by the others, and they made up for it by giving the guy a few more details about Rush: He annoyed the bartenders because he wouldn't drink anything unless he was the one to open the bottle. He could sing in Gaelic, in both the Scots and Irish versions; nobody in the group really knew what the songs were saying, but they said the tunes were beautiful and fascinating. Gloria had taught him to play the violin. The research he was doing with quantum communication and computation was leading the field, according to Constance. He'd had quite a few offers to leave academia for industry, which so far he had refused. In 2001 he'd won an award from the National Academy of Sciences for his work with Secure Hash Algorithms. 

Eli turned off the computer when the video ended.

This group of musicians, they actually seemed to like Rush, even when he was being difficult. They hadn't expressed the conflicted feelings Destiny's crew had toward their chief scientist.

Of course, maybe he'd never screwed them over like he had the crew. Maybe he'd never lied to them. Maybe his actions had never contributed to the death of any of their friends. 

He'd let the science team know about what he'd learned. Later, after his mom went to bed, he'd read the papers Rush had published. For now, though, he'd turn on the dishwasher and sweep the floor and when his mom came downstairs, he'd watch movies with her and he'd treat this time with her as the gift it was.

* * *

 

**Camile's and Sharon's house. Washington D.C.**

 

Camile sat up with a gasp and wrapped her arms around herself. God, she hated having this recurring dream. Next to her, Sharon stirred and reached for her, and the familiar touch grounded her, even if this wasn't her own body and kissing Sharon and scenting her felt different.

She was home. This was their sheets, their bed, with its annoying creak when they made love, their room with the pale yellow walls, their window with the blinds down and if she got out of bed and pulled those blinds up she would see trees and houses and a sky that was changing from black to red-tinged grey to a glorious sunrise. To blue skies and she could open that window and smell Earth smells, a hint of rain, grass being cut, car exhaust, bacon frying from the Kowlaski's kitchen, and she would hear dogs barking and cars starting and traffic and people's voices as they kissed their husband or wife or kids goodbye for the day.

“Camile, what's wrong?” Sharon, her curly hair in beautiful total disarray, pulled her back down so she was lying in her arms. “Did you have a nightmare again?”

Her breathing still a little ragged, Camile whispered, “Yes.”

Sharon tightened her arms around her. “I'm sorry.”

“It was about TJ again. About coming back to myself in the infirmary and seeing all that blood and the bodies, and TJ on the gurney. Doctor Kemp being herded away by the Alliance soldiers, only he wasn't Kemp, he was still one of the doctors and I can't remember his name and he shouted to me, 'She lost the baby. We did everything we could. Tell her we did everything we could to save her daughter,' and then he changed, his expression and everything changed, and he was Kemp and confused and I was alone in the infirmary with TJ and an Alliance soldier and I didn't know how to tell her, what to say to her when she woke up.”

“Shhhh,” Sharon crooned to her. “It's all right now. Just a dream, and it's gone now.” She kissed Camile on her temple three times. “There, love chased away the nightmare.”

Camile inhaled deeply, slowly, and exhaled in a measured pace, using the techniques she taught to others for herself. Letting her body calm, her tense muscles relax. Her heartbeat slowed, the first stirrings of sleepiness starting to make her limbs feel heavy. She murmured, “Your mom's little ritual about making nightmares go away, it's so sweet.”

“It always made me feel better when she did it,” Sharon said, and there was a wistful tone to her voice that Camile caught. But she was falling back to sleep and she felt comfortable and treasured and so she didn't ask about what Sharon was thinking about, what made her sound like that.

Her eyes closed and she let herself slip away.

* * *

She woke to the feel of soft lips kissing her neck and arched upwards, baring her throat, giving Sharon, her Sharon, more of herself, letting her know that this touch was welcome, was needed, was something she craved.

And even as she sank her hands in Sharon's curls, storing up the memory of weight and texture and scent and color to remember on those nights on the ship when she was so alone, she wished with all her heart that it was her own body that Sharon was kissing, and touching, her own nipples that were hardening and her body that was feeling aroused. Thank God the stones didn't let you remember what happened to your body when you swapped, because it would kill her to think that Mehta would have these memories of making love with Sharon.

“Sharon,” she gasped, as her lover's clever fingers trailed down Camile's belly. “Oh,” and she'd never been able to be verbal much while her body was lit on fire like this. Camile let her own hands stroke Sharon, touching her breasts, but when Sharon began teasing Camile's clit, not touching her directly, working her up, making her gasp, she abandoned her attempts to reciprocate and let her legs fall open, inviting Sharon in. 

“I love you,” Sharon whispered, and it was like an arrow to the heart because what could she offer her, to Sharon who'd been waiting for her like the wife of a sailor lost at sea, walking the cliffs and half tempted to throw herself into the water to drown only she was waiting, waiting because there was the chance the cruel sea would return her lover. Like an old story, an old ballad, Sharon was slowly turning into a ghostly tragic figure and she should let her go, let her find a new love, but she was so relieved that Sharon hadn't left her and Sharon's fingers were just so right and her touch was exquisite and Camile never wanted to let her go, she wanted to stay here, stay in their bed and watch Sharon's expression as Camile brought her pleasure. 

Camile burst into tears as her orgasm took her over and Sharon held her tight, held her like she could keep Camile from being swept out to sea, but currents are strong and Camile knows that it will only be a matter of time before Sharon has to let her go, let the waves pull her away and she will find herself back on Destiny.

* * *

“Babe,” Sharon said, her face solemn, lit by the afternoon light streaming in their kitchen window. “We need to talk before they come for you.” She dropped her eyes to her wine glass.

Camile reached out and covered Sharon's hand. “I'm listening.”

“I guess...” Sharon hesitated, letting her words drop off. “Remember our plans, before you ended up on Destiny?”

“Of course. I was going to put in my time offworld so I could secure a better position with the IOA. It's become an unofficial requirement, if you want to advance at all, and you know how they kept finding excuses to not promote me.”

It had been discrimination and prejudice and she hated that she couldn't stop it, but at least she had confronted Strom, that bastard, about it. Sharon was waiting for her, so she said, “But after a year at Icarus, I was going to come back and if the IOA wouldn't find me a decent position in the Washington office, I was going to go back to working for a University. And then we were going to... Oh.”

“Start a family,” Sharon said gently.

Camile squeezed Sharon's fingers. “I can't have a baby on that ship. Not after what happened to TJ's daughter.”

“Your nightmare. I think we should talk about it, because it's obviously bothering you a lot, but you were in stasis for three years. You didn't age. I did. I don't want to wait any longer, Camile. I want to have a baby this year. And it's killing me because if I do, you won't be here to raise our son or daughter with me.”

“Sharon,” Camile said helplessly.

“You being so far away,” Sharon said, swirling the wine. “I hate it.” 

“I know. I do too.”

She looked Camile in the eyes, “I would go with you, you know. I would take my chances on Destiny, if I could be with you, and I would risk raising a family there.”

Camile shook her head, her stomach clenching hard. “I've lost track of how many times we almost blew up or were in danger of being boarded by aliens or almost ended up drifting through space, starving to death. I don't want you to die if something like that happens to us.”

“I'm aware of the problems.” Sharon's expression had become mulish. She was as stubborn as she was beautiful and Camile loved her for it, even as she began feeling horrified at the idea of Sharon and their child on board Destiny.

Emphatically, because the thought of her family facing the dangers she and the crew had, Camile said, trying to make Sharon understand, “Going to planets is dangerous; people have been killed by animals; we all almost died from contaminated water. And a baby, children on board. How is that fair to them?”

“How is it fair for a family to be separated?” Sharon shot back, and leaned towards her. “Camile, I've thought about this a lot; I've thought about nothing else, to tell the truth. Our ancestors took their families with them, and it was dangerous for them, to sail on boats, to go to new lands. I know there's a risk, but I'm willing to take it.”

“You're willing to risk our children?” Camile said quietly. 

“It's not all risk. We would be explorers too.” Sharon argued, but then her shoulders slumped. “This is just dreaming right now. I can't go to you, you can't come home to me. I want a baby, and I can't wait any longer. You've got a little more time to hold off on deciding, because of the stasis pod.”

Still quiet, Camile said, her thoughts back on the ship, “TJ's baby died because the Lucian Alliance attacked the ship and TJ was shot.”

Sharon bit her lip and held tightly to Camile's hand. She said, “I know. You told me, and it was terrible and wrong and I'm so very sorry for TJ's loss, but Camile, a terrorist attack could also happen here. Or I could be shot during a mugging, or by someone with road rage or by somebody coming into my lab with a gun and shooting everyone they see. There is no place that you can guarantee absolute safety.”

Camile closed her eyes, feeling hopeless, torn between being needed on Destiny and being needed by Sharon.“Are you sure? Really sure, Sharon Deloris Walker? You said it was killing you to think about doing this without me here.”

“I am sure, and I'll cope. I'll have to. My parents will help, my sister, too.” Sharon smiled at her in that sweet self-deprecating way that had caught her eye so many years ago. 

Camile took a deep breath. “Okay. I understand. And I will come back as often as I can. God, a baby.”

“Yes, a baby, a child of our own.” Sharon's smile broke across her face like the sun rising at dawn. “We can go to the sperm bank tomorrow; I've been in touch with them, looked through the donor files. I want our children to look like you and me.”

Camile pulled Sharon closer, there in their home, their kitchen with the white cupboards that needed repainting and wooden floors they'd been putting off refurnishing for years. She kissed her and then laid her hand on Sharon's belly. “Have you talked to a doctor yet?”

Sharon's eyes were wide. “Yes. There shouldn't be any problems with me conceiving, but the longer we wait, the more difficult it could be.” She kissed Camile, a sweet and lovely kiss, and when they ended it, they smiled at each other. Soulmates, that was what they were. For over fifteen years, they'd been each other's best friend, partner, lover. And now they would become parents together.

“Well, then, we should celebrate tonight.” Camile handed Sharon her wine glass. They'd bought the set shortly after they'd moved in together. A present to themselves for an unsanctioned wedding. She clinked her own with Sharon's. “Before you can't drink this anymore.”

Sharon laughed, and she sounded exhilarated and a little scared. “God, I'm going to be a mother.”

“You'll be the best mother a child could ever have,” Camile said firmly. “And maybe I'll be home for good before she or he is born.”

“As long as we're together,” Sharon said, “where doesn't matter.” 

* * *

They made love again late that evening, Camile imaging what it would feel like to do this while Sharon's belly was rounded with a child, with her breasts tight and full and heavy. Afterwards, she had spooned her and tried to fall asleep. She was finding it difficult. Lying in bed felt bitter-sweet, partly because her time with Sharon was running out. Partly for other reasons. They'd both talked about the baby to be conceived all evening and Camile had felt a surge of guilt because she'd never told Sharon that her other self had made the decision to have children on the forsaken planet they'd been stranded on. 

She would tell her before she left again, the day after tomorrow.

She still had to meet with the IOA brass, which included Strom, which she was not looking forward to doing. Also, she'd asked Richard Woolsey for a meeting. She wanted his support, and to maneuver around Strom she was going to need it. Woolsey was more by the book than she was, but his experiences off world had seasoned him and she'd found him to be the most reasonable of the top IOA people. 

Sharon was deeply asleep so she slipped out of bed and went downstairs. She got a glass of water and went outside to the back patio, sat down at the picnic table where they'd entertained friends at summer bar-be-ques. She breathed the crisp air deeply; fall was coming. She missed seeing Earth trees and flowers. On Destiny, the hydroponics domed area needed to be repaired before it could be used. Until then, they'd use their old set up. She liked working with the plants there. It was soothing. Most of the crew felt the same way and that was one job they never had trouble finding people to work. Even Nicholas liked to come there. 

Thinking of him brought up thoughts of where the relationship between Young and Rush was heading. The week they'd spent together had done both of them a lot of good, she thought. She hoped things continued to improve between them. It would make her life so much more easier. 

She'd always suspected that part of their fireworks toward each other was fueled by sexual attraction, not that either of them probably realized it. It would be interesting to see if they figured it out. 

The back door opened and Sharon stepped outside, her bathrobe wrapped tightly around her. “Camile?”

“Couldn't sleep. Thought I'd come outside for a while, but I'm done now.” Camile stood up and stretched. “Let's go back to bed.”

* * *

She came back to herself, feeling that momentary disorientation from switching bodies. The light was dim, the air smelled like antiseptic and blood. She was in the infirmary; she'd switched with Doctor Brightman so the wounded could be treated. The ship had been attacked by the Alliance and she had been captured. They'd only let her use the stones to save their own people.

There was blood covering her fingers and she wiped it off with the towel she'd found in her hands, but it wouldn't leave her skin. Her hands were stained with the blood of her friends and enemies. There was a moan from a gurney and she knew it was TJ starting to wake up and she would have to tell her about the baby. 

Moving quietly so that she wouldn't startle the Lucian Alliance guard, she went to the gurney but it wasn't TJ. It was Sharon and she'd been shot, blood bubbling up from her belly and chest and there was a gash where their baby had been taken from Sharon's womb. Sharon's eyes opened and she gripped Camile's arm in a death grip.

“Where's the baby?!” she said, her voice rising in panic. “Where's our daughter, where is she, where is she, where is she?!” 

Camile started to cry. “I don't know. She's lost. I can't find her.”

Suddenly Greer and Scott entered the infirmary and Greer shot the Lucian Alliance soldier in the chest. “He knew where your baby was, but he had to die,” Greer explained. “I'm sorry that you'll never find your child, but it had to be done.” He smiled grimly at her. “They'll pay for what they did.”

Suddenly Sharon made a gurgling sound and her hand fell from Camile's arm.

“No, don't die, don't die! Sharon. Sharon!”

A voice cut through her panic and distress. “Camile, wake up. It's just a bad dream. Wake up, you're all right.”

She opened her eyes to see bright sunlight streaming through the windows and Sharon shaking her. 

“You're alive,” Camile gasped, still caught in the dream's web, but even as she said it the power of the nightmare drifted away. “I dreamed you were dying on Destiny because you'd been shot by the Alliance, and you'd had the baby by C-section, like TJ did, and the baby had disappeared. Like TJ's baby did.”

“Oh, Camile,” Sharon said, and rolled on top of her, kissed her forehead, her lips. “I'm so sorry you've had to go through the things you have. Let's get up and have coffee, do normal things, and then maybe it would help if you talked about that day, that awful day when TJ lost her baby.”

* * *

Camile drank the rest of her coffee slowly and deliberately put the empty mug down on the small table on their stone patio. Sharon had insisted on them being outside, saying Camile should enjoy the sunshine while she was home. She tipped her face up to the morning sun for a while, being silent, being calm, thinking that other suns on other planets didn't feel quite the same as their own. 

When she did finally open her eyes, Sharon was looking at her from across the table, and the sunlight made her hair a golden red. She was so beautiful, Camile thought, and held out her hand. 

Sharon clasped it and said quietly, “Tell me again what happened when the Alliance took over the ship? You told me before that they dialed the gate from their secret base and blew up their planet when they did, and they came through their stargate armed to take the ship.”

Camile nodded, calling up her memories of that horrible day. She said, “Colonel Young had delayed on venting the air from the gate room when he saw that the Alliance had brought one of our people with them. He gave them the chance to surrender. They didn't. Instead they took advantage of those moments to get the door open with something they brought that unlocked them. I know Rush thinks he did the wrong thing. I don't know, maybe he did. But he was trying to save our people's lives. David Telford and Rush.”

“Did they hurt you?”

Camile shook her head slightly, feeling Mehta's long dark hair brushing her shoulders, her breasts. “Not me. But they took the ship. They took TJ and some of the others prisoner, and TJ was made to treat them. Except I think she would have anyway. She's a medic. But she's a soldier, too, and she would have fought them first.”

“Where were you?”

“With the civilians, trying to keep people calm.” They had a good crew, Camile thought, those people who'd been flung through the gate. They'd all learned to adapt minus the ones who hadn't killed themselves or left out on their own.

“You're so brave, Camile.”

“I was terrified, to be honest. But I couldn't let the crew down.”

Sharon squeezed her hand, her expression so sympathetic.

Camile said, “It was terrible, frightening. I tried to help, to let the Alliance see us as people, to communicate that we did share some common goals and that we could cooperate in achieving those goals. They were too extremist to want to coexist with us, though.”

“You had to try,” Sharon said, her hand warm in Camile's. “You wouldn't be you if you didn't try to help both parties reach some sort of consensus.”

Sighing, Camile said, “I attempted to do just that, but it wasn't possible; TJ was shot in the attempt to retake the ship. A lot of people were, including Kiva, the Alliance leader. Several of us were made to switch on the stones so that a team of doctors could come. The rest of the civilians and military surrendered and were forced to gate down to a planet, but there was a plan to take control back. It partly worked. Rush forced them to surrender, but he was willing to sacrifice more of our people. If it hadn't been for Ginn shooting the fanatic that took Kiva's place our people on the ship mostly would have died, including TJ. Including me.” 

“What happened?”

Camile bit her lip, glad that with Sharon there was no need to hide her true feelings. She didn't have to be strong, not with her. Not now. “I had just switched back with Dr. Brightman and I'd been told the baby didn't make it. It was so chaotic. Everyone left but me, TJ, who was unconscious, and the guard. Then Matt and Greer came and shot the guard. They tried to get us out of there to safety, but the Alliance cut us off. Then it was over and I was dreading telling TJ that her baby had died.” 

Sharon said, “You called out in your dream this morning. You said, 'She's lost.' Who were you talking about, do you remember?”

“The baby. After it was over, when the Alliance soldiers were prisoners, I looked for the baby's body. I wanted to clean her up, wrap her in a towel so that when TJ woke up I could let her hold her child. Colonel Young, too. I know she was his baby, although that was kept quiet. At this point, I can't care that they broke regulations. Initially, I thought he took advantage of TJ, because of the difference in their ranks. I didn't know TJ very well then. Not like now. She's strong, Sharon. She would have gone into that relationship with her eyes wide open.”

“Didn't you tell me they married on Novus and had more children? Before she died from ALS?”

“Yes.” Reluctantly, because she was still afraid this would hurt Sharon, she said, “And, well I didn't tell you this before. It wasn't me, you know. But I did, too. Had children. A boy and a girl. I named the boy after my father and the girl after you.”

“You were with someone?” Sharon swallowed, and her eyes became wet.

“No,” Camile said emphatically. “No. I saw the kino recordings, read my other's self's diary. I already had found my soulmate, you know.” She kissed Sharon's hand. “That Camile never had a relationship with anyone else. I'm not sure how it was accomplished, but I know that love wasn't involved in the birth of those children.”

Sharon looked a little bewildered. “I... need some time to think about that. That you didn't want to be with anyone else but me. I'm not sure I like you denying yourself love when there was no chance of ever coming back to me. But, I'm glad you had a family.”

“And now we'll have a family.”

Sharon smiled at her and then said. “Why did you say TJ's baby was lost. Did you mean that she'd died?”

Shaking her head, Camile said, “No. I couldn't find the baby's body.”

“What?” Sharon said, sounding horrified.

Camile swallowed hard, fighting back tears as she was swamped again with sorrow. “At first I thought maybe the baby had been taken to the planet, to be buried. But when everyone came back I found out that hadn't happened. When I couldn't find TJ's baby, I switched again on the stones after we took back the ship and asked Dr. Brightman what had happened. She said that it had been frantic in the infirmary with trying to save people.”

“You called me, from Homeworld Command, didn't you? Told me that you loved me. I knew something awful was happening but you said you couldn't leave, you might have to go back within seconds, that you couldn't explain right now. That was when you and the others had to switch with the doctors?”

Nodding, Camile said, “Yes. I just wanted to hear your voice again. I didn't know what was going to happen. I tried to negotiate with those people, but in the end diplomacy failed. I know now that the plan was always to put most of us off the ship if we weren't killed outright.”

Camile stared at her hand holding tightly to Sharon's, seeing long fingers, tan skin. But it wasn't her skin, her body, but another woman's, and she was just so tired of never being able to hold Sharon in her own arms. She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, letting herself calm down so that she didn't start crying. She wanted to tell Sharon the rest of what happened. She needed to tell her because this had been haunting her.

She looked into Sharon's blue eyes and found warmth and love there waiting for her. Haltingly, she said, “The baby had been born alive, but in distress. She only lived a few minutes. Dr. Brightman didn't know where the baby's body had been put, so I checked with the other three doctors who had been on the ship. One of them said he'd put her in a pulled out drawer. I found where the drawer was missing, but not it. Maybe the Alliance soldiers did something with it, but none of the Alliance left alive claimed to know anything about it. I believe Varro; he made sure TJ was taken care of when she was shot.”

“What do you think happened?” Sharon asked quietly, still holding her hand tightly.

She sobbed, “I'm afraid maybe the baby was incinerated. There's a way to do that with medical waste. I sifted through the ashes, but there were no bone fragments, so I don't know.”

“What did you tell TJ?”

“Nothing, Sharon, I didn't tell her anything.” She cried for a while, and pulled her hand free to wipe the tears off her face.

“Didn't she ask for the baby?” Sharon asked, and Camile took her outstretched hand again.

“I told her I was so sorry and she knew I meant about the baby. I don't think she really accepted it, though and she thought she'd been off the ship. A dream perhaps. She didn't ask to see her daughter. I couldn't bear to tell her that we didn't know what had happened. I felt so bad for her but she didn't want to talk to me. Colonel Young was given the report. I don't think he took it very well. He was slipping. Drinking a lot, and then the ship tortured him with dreams of failing the crew no matter what he did. I thought he couldn't do it anymore, be the strong leader we need, but he pulled out of his dive.” Camile dashed away the new tears that had trickled down her cheek. “He's doing well now... ”

“But?” Sharon said. 

“I wish both of them could have had closure by holding their daughter, grieving together.” Camile gave her a tremulous smile. “Thank you for listening. I felt so helpless to help her and I really hadn't talked about it with anyone.”

“They're lucky to have you on that ship. Are you ready to take the first step towards starting our own family?” Sharon let go of Camile's hand and pushed up from the chair. 

Camile stood up. Sharon came to her side and put an arm around her waist. Camile said, “I'm ready.” She hoped it was the truth.

* * *

**Colonel Young's Quarters. Destiny.**

Everett found his wedding ring where he'd thrown it in his desk drawer. Life was strange, he thought. He'd never thought when Emily slipped it on his finger that he'd be leaving it on an alien planet. Actually... it had crossed his mind. Still, while he'd accepted that he might end up dead and buried on an alien world when he'd joined the SGC, he never thought he'd be leaving his ring as trade goods. 

This was Rush's idea. They needed supplies. Unless they were stopped by force, they'd be taking those supplies from the town, the fields, but Rush had argued for the idea of mutual trade. Everett had no idea what aliens would make of their offerings, because they actually had very little to spare. 

“These aliens might very well be amenable to trading with us, Colonel,” Rush had said, sounding distracted, when Everett had radioed him from the gate room for a better explanation of what he wanted since his cryptic command to TJ to “Gather up whatever baubles and nonsense the crew can live without and send it through the gate,” had only caused confusion. “I'm no averse to stealing what we need, but perhaps we can avoid being known as raiders in this galaxy. I doubt this small settlement can give us anything much, but if we leave them things in return, then perhaps whoever uses this stargate will be willing to really trade with us for materials we need to fix the ship. An exchange of scientific data and concepts. Food if it's edible. Cloth for clothes.”

“And you couldn't explain that to TJ the first time?” Everett sighed. 

“I'm busy, Colonel. I'm flying two kinos at once, to study the town and the gate. Tell Brody to look for energy signatures indicating a shield over the town and gate, perhaps like Atlantis'. Oh, and bring my IPod for trade goods. Did I leave it in your quarters? Or the observation deck when we watched Destiny enter the star? I'm no sure.”

Rush's voice was loud and clear in the gateroom. When he and Rush had starting exchanging words, talk had died down from the groups waiting to be sent down to forage and the civilians who had been sent back to the ship for safety. 

Great. Just. Great. Everett was getting a variety of looks, from incredulous to amused to startled to uncertain. He felt a surge of irritation at Rush. He could practically feel the rumor mill kicking up to high gear and he did not need the crew speculating about this evidence of a much friendlier relationship between him and Rush. Not now, when he was going to take a step back.

“Anything else, Doctor Rush?” he said instead, holding onto his patience. 

“Send more kinos through with the other equipment I asked for. Rush out.”

“Brody,” Everett said, putting his radio back on his belt.

“Already on it,” Brody answered, and at least his expression was as deadpan as always. 

Everett walked to a console and flipped a switch. “This is Young. We will be attempting to trade with the aliens on this planet, if possible. If you have something you can live without that is not essential, such as jewelry, electronics, artwork, spare ties, please bring them to the gate room immediately. Thank you. Young out.” His voice echoed a little from the shipboard communication. The crew in the gate room started to talk to each other again and quite a few left.

“TJ, keep the foraging teams ready to go. I'll radio you when I'm in the shuttle.” She nodded at him, and he thought once again how lucky he and the crew were to have her on board. She should have made Captain by now, and he intended to see that happen. 

“Colonel?” Chloe caught his arm. “What if we gave a copy of Eli's kino documentary to the aliens?” 

Amused at the idea, Everett told her, “Watching all those videos from Doctor Jackson did have an effect, I see. Fine. Maybe that will convince them we're peaceful explorers.” Jackson would love the idea of turning over Eli's films of the crew for the aliens to ponder.

Chloe flashed him an inquiring look. “Jackson made that his motto when SG1 would encounter a new bunch of aliens,” he said, his mouth quirking up in a brief smile. “He's the great communicator of the SGC. Oh, and bring back another dozen kinos, too, since you're braving Eli's room.” Chloe smiled and walked quickly out of the gate room. 

He'd left for his quarters then, making a stop to get a backpack and a tac vest and weapons. Maybe they strived to be peaceful explorers but just in case their luck ran true, an assault rifle would be a good idea.

Ending his contemplation, he put his wedding ring in a pocket near his heart – which he found rather ironic – and found the IPod in his chest of drawers. He wasn't sure what the aliens would make of it, but he gathered it and the accessories together and tossed them in the backpack 

It was a shame, actually, that Rush was going to give it away. But then again, maybe he wanted to lose probably his last connection to Earth. Those songs, like the Cosmos themes, represented times in his life that meant something to him. And Nicholas Rush had been systematically cutting his ties to his past since Everett had known him.

Grabbing his computer case, Everett decided that he'd make a copy of the music on the way to the planet. For himself, because it was no concern of his if Rush never wanted to listen to his favorite music ever again. 

* * *

“Lieutenant Scott, report,” Everett said. The shuttle was parked as close to the gate as he could get it, and he'd trotted over to the group at the stargate, some standing guard at the perimeter, some closer in.

“Still doing recon with the kinos, sir,” Matt said. “I'd advise against questioning Doctor Rush right now.”

Everett glanced over at Rush. He was worrying his lip as he maneuvered the kinos. Telford stood nearby, ready with his assault rifle. It really was odd to see Eli's body held so straight, Telford's ingrained competence with weapons translated into a much different set of muscles.

Glancing at Matt, he said, “This is still your mission, Lieutenant. How do you want to proceed?”

“We've seen no sign of any population, other than their buildings. We need the food and medicinals and water we located, so we'll send the foraging parties out, but we'll double the military guarding them. Radio checks every five minutes.”

Everett nodded. Lord knows with the entire crew awake they desperately needed food and water.

Matt said, “James and her detail will be in charge of guarding this gate.” After delineating the rest of the assignments, he said, “If we locate the aliens, we'll try to negotiate with the donated items from the crew. If they're not to be found then we'll leave the stuff and take what we can use. 

“You sound doubtful about the aliens being here.”

“Well, sir,” Matt said, scanning the area, his rifle held in a relaxed pose, “where are they then? A big honking space ship shows up, and there are people searching their lands and they aren't taking pot shots at Destiny or us or greeting us? My guess is that the place is shielded, similar to Atlantis, and when they detected Destiny coming they evaced through their gate.”

“Guess we'll see. Give the orders, Lieutenant.”

There was a flurry of activity as teams came through the gate and were dispatched back to the sites of likely food and medicine, carrying bags for harvesting. The new kino sleds were pushed through, several loaded down with huge empty water cans. Practically the entire ship had emptied to do scavenger duty. Brody was keeping an eye on long range sensors, though, in case they needed to scramble back to the ship. 

Rush ignored everyone. Everett didn't talk to him and quietly diverted those members of the crew who wanted Rush's attention, until the donations from the ship and the exploration teams to the alien gate and town were mostly loaded onto the shuttle. Then he stood in front of Rush and waited to be noticed. He wanted to just put an arm around his shoulders and steer him into the shuttle or at least nudge him into noticing that they were almost ready to take off. But he wouldn't give in to those impulses. 

It took at least a minute before Rush noticed there was someone right outside of his personal space. He startled and took a half step backward, holding the kino remote up as if to ward off an attack, and then as he met Everett's eyes, he relaxed. “Colonel,” he said, and actually smiled at him. “This gate, it's fantastic.”

“Time to get on board the shuttle, Doctor Rush,” he said calmly. Professionally. One colleague to another.

“We're loaded up? Then let's go.” Rush turned and started to run towards the shuttle. Everett gave James a nod and she nodded back. She had the watch. Scott was already in the pilot seat, doing the pre-flight. Rush stopped abruptly then, and let Everett catch up to him. 

“Did you find my IPod?” Rush started walking rapidly and Everett matched his pace.

“I did.” Everett said, “It's with the rest of the loot. Mostly jewelry, a broken watch, an old style cell phone without any frills. Some artwork, mostly what Camile had given to various people. That Wormhole X-Treme book, although a few crew members recorded it as a radio type play for some insane reason so it's still available if somebody still hasn't read it.”

“It's now in audio format?” Rush gave a theatrical sigh. “What a pity since we're booting that waste of time and paper off the ship permanently.” His dimples had made an appearance with the small grin he'd given Everett. 

“We're also leaving a copy of Eli's documentary,” Everett added, being careful to not react to Rush's amusement. Personal moments were off the table.

“I wonder what they'll make of that,” Rush said, checking the remote while walking.

“They might be more interested in the kino than what's on it.” Everett moved a little closer to him so he, too, could watch the kino. 

“Hmmph. Well, I suppose we can spare one kino.” 

“We can. The scavenging teams gathered up all of the kinos they could find from the other Destiny, but you knew that,” Everett pointed out, and then from the look on Rush's face, added, “or maybe you didn't know it.”

“I didn't.” Rush looked down at the kino remote again. “I had other things on my mind than taking inventory.”

“Doctor Rush,” Everett began, remembering his resolutions. “I want to clear something up.”

Rush glanced at him, and started to frown. “What?”

 _Well, Young,_ Everett thought, _time to start following the plan._ “I basically ordered you to eat with me in the evenings, so we could share information. In hindsight, I shouldn't have done that. But I still think we should have some sort of daily meeting, don't you?”

Rush's expression cleared and he smiled. “Aye, I suppose. A short one, mind you.”

“Then I'll leave it up to you to decide what works best. Just let me know when you figure it out.”

“You surely didn't think I took your edict seriously, did you, Colonel?” Rush shot him an amused look. “You'd have found yourself stood up a fair number of times, then, if you waited for me to come eat with you.”

“And now I won't expect you at all. We don't even have to meet face to face. We could exchange information through a private channel if you would remember to keep the radio on and not let the batteries die down.” And that, Everett thought, was not taking a pot shot at Rush. Everyone agreed that their chief scientist was the world's worst about using the radio correctly.

Rush gave a dismissive wave of his hand. They were almost to the shuttle now, and Everett could see that people were strapping themselves in.

“Look, Doctor Rush,” he said, “I want you to know that I'm going to do as you asked and keep things strictly on a professional level between us.”

That earned him a searching stare from Rush. “You were upset when we woke up. When you implied nothing important occurred in the simulation I thought my dream was to blame – I know you shared it, Colonel, it was obvious and the data from the EEG verified it – but that wasn't it, was it? What happened, then? In the simulation?”

“Nothing happened.” Thank God, Everett thought. Destiny's motives for forcing him into another dream simulation were murky as hell, but the dream had served as a warning. One he would take seriously. “Nothing happened, and nothing's ever going to happen except that we're going to have a good working relationship, not a personal one. This is what you asked me for, and I've decided you were right.”

“I've heard that before,” Rush said dubiously.

“I know.” Everett said determinedly. “I screwed up. I was hoping you'd change your mind about us, but I'm not going to be undermining that decision anymore. We need to put what happened in the stasis pod behind us.”

“Yes, of course, very good,” Rush said, but he looked uncertain. 

“I am sorry, though. About what happened to you in your dream.” And he truly was. Rush had been an innocent kid, just wanting to have some harmless fun with a friend. It would be hypocritical of him to say Rush shouldn't have been drinking that night because how many times had Everett also experimented with alcohol when he'd been fifteen and sixteen. Besides, he wasn't an idiot. He understood that nothing about that rape had been Rush's fault. 

Rush sighed and looked down at the monitor in his hands. “It was a long time ago. Don't worry about it, Colonel.”

“I don't want to see anything like that happen to you again,” Everett said, thinking of the beatings from vigilantes. Thinking of how he'd taken advantage of him in the simulation. Then he hastily added, “To any of the crew.”

“I know that, too. We're fine, aye?” Rush said, not meeting his eyes. 

“Yeah, sure. So, still no sign of any aliens?” Everett said, motioning to the kino monitor.

Rush looked up at him briefly and then glanced down at the monitor again. “No. But they could be hiding. We'll use the other kinos to send into buildings before our people enter them. They could have gone through their stargate, when Destiny dropped out of FTL.”

When they entered the shuttle Everett strode up to the co-pilot's seat and strapped himself in. Matt acknowledged him and turned around to look at the thirteen other people on board. “Oh, boy,” he muttered and Everett shifted to see what the hold up was.

Eli, no, Telford had grabbed Rush's arm and was detaining him. Rush looked frustrated and tried to jerk his arm free. Telford yanked him even closer and tried to pull Rush down in the empty seat next to him. Everett started to get up, to handle this. To rescue Rush and no. No, nope, nada. Too personal. Instead he said quietly, “Lieutenant, let's see how you out maneuver a general.”

Matt raised his voice. “Doctor Rush, you're needed ASAP in the cockpit.” He sounded curt and angry, and Telford let Rush go, with a slightly smug and vindictive look that just seemed wrong on Eli's face.

“Greer,” Matt said quietly. “Take a different seat. Rush can sit up here.”

“Yes, sir,” Greer said, and bounded up. He'd already unstrapped himself. 

Rush and Greer approached each other, and Everett heard Greer say, “You okay, Doc?”

“Yes, yes, I'm fine,” Rush said and Greer gave him a pat on the back as they passed. 

“When exactly did Greer go from wanting to shoot Rush to giving him pats on the back?” Everett asked, quietly bemused.

Matt kept his voice low as well. “Ever since Greer watched the kino footage of Rush getting the bomb off Park's back, he's made it clear he's looking out for the guy. Shuts down any disparaging talk about him.”

“What is it?” Rush said behind them, sounding frustrated. “We should go.”

“Soon as you take this seat, Doc,” Matt said, all trace of annoyance and anger gone from his voice. Everett watched as Greer planted himself in the seat next to Telford with one of his forbidding grins on his face. 

Rush shot Matt a confused look, and then shrugged, sat down, and strapped in. “Still no sign of the aliens. Obviously, I'm going to the gate; you should use the extra kinos to explore buildings before stepping inside.”

“Telford's going to head up the town team; Greer's assigned to the alien gate.” Matt told Rush, then directed his gaze towards Everett, as he brought the engines up and closed the back of the shuttle. “We're needed as pilots so one of us should stay with the shuttle, but I'll leave it up to you, sir, if you want to stick with Doctor Rush or go with the town team or guard the shuttle.”

Rush jumped into the conversation before Everett could respond. “The Colonel needs to come with me. Obviously.”

Raising his eyebrows, Everett shot back, “It's not obvious to me, Doctor Rush.”

Giving out an exasperated sigh, Rush said, “This could well be one of the most important discoveries since our stargate was unlocked by Doctor Jackson. You're the mission commander, of course you need to be with me.”

“For professional reasons, then?” Everett said, not exactly buying Rush's reasoning. 

Rolling his eyes, Rush answered, “Didn't I just say that?” His expression turned a little jubilant. “This is absolutely marvelous, you know. McKay would give his eyeteeth to be here.” 

“Going to rub it in when you see him, Doc?” Matt asked, a small grin on his face. “You know, it's nice to see a surprise that really gets your motor running.” The shuttle lifted into the air and turned west. “When Greer and I showed Doctor Rush where the stargates were manufactured in the seed ship, we thought he'd be excited as hell, but he just shrugged his shoulders.” 

“Any rational person would know to expect that manufacturing area, Lieutenant. Of course I wasn't surprised,” Rush said. “If we'd had more time, I would have examined the Ancient's process more closely, though.”

They flew low, and within moments were close enough to the town and gate to see them through the cockpit windows.

“Sir,” Matt asked. “What's your decision?”

He glanced at Rush. The man was looking at him; God, that expression. Everett was reminded of the look on Rush's face when he'd asked Everett to stand with him when he made his plea to the crew to stay on Destiny. Vulnerable wariness tinged with no real hopefulness, but still he'd asked. There had been no way that Everett would have turned him down. 

He should send Matt with him instead to this alien gate. Distance himself. He wasn't going to be able to provide Rush with any real help, except the kind with a gun. But, for Rush to actually ask publicly to work together with him again? For the crew to know it and see them getting along? What was that pact he and Rush had made after Rush had escaped from the Nakai? 'For the good of the crew,' they'd pledged. It had been shattered during the mutiny, but maybe it was time to resurrect it again.

“I'll go with Doctor Rush,” he told Matt and the look of pleasure and excitement that crossed Rush's face made his misgivings even stronger. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are many versions of _Angeline the Baker_. This is [Crooked Still's version.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW64GhvmJAE).


	18. In Need

**The Planet of Missing People**

Matt relanded the shuttle, just lightly kissing the ground of this new planet. Ron knew it had a number designation, but they weren't as strict about using that system as they were back in the Milky Way or Pegasus. Mostly, they called the planets things like _“The Ice Planet, The Desert Planet, The Planet of Deadly Lizards,”_ shit like that. Brody had tagged this one, _“The Planet of Missing People.”_

Watching Matt flipping switches and powering off systems, Ron freed himself from his restraint and stood up, checked to make sure his radio was good, and grabbed his rifle. Rush was still in his seat, eyes focused intently on the kino monitor, and Ron wondered if he even realized they had landed. The Doc could be a little oblivious to other things when he was super focused on something.

Ron waited until Matt shouldered his weapon and caught Ron's eye, then they both headed to the back of the shuttle, ready to scan for enemies. The Colonel touched the controls and once the back hatch was open, Ron could see the alien gate looming a short distance away, all made up of angles like it was some sort of freaky attraction at an amusement park. There was a road that led there, fairly broad, and the light blue material it was made of shimmered in the sunlight. 

“Doctor Rush, we need a status report,” said the Colonel. He was getting geared up, rifle, backpack, radio clipped to his vest. 

Rush glanced up briefly at the Colonel, an eager look on his face. “No sign of any aliens or hostile technology, Colonel. I'll keep looking, but we should go.” He unbuckled his seat harness and stood up, eyes still glued to the monitor in his hands.

Colonel Young tilted his head slightly towards the alien gate. “Greer,” he said, and Ron moved out of the shuttle to take point, his weapon ready, on high alert. Just because nobody had seen the people who lived here didn't mean they weren't setting up an ambush. Telford's team had already been dropped off on the outskirts of the small town, which was only a couple of klicks wide. Ron couldn't stand the man, brainwashed or free of it, but he was a very competent soldier. The team was in good hands.

The sky was a darker shade of blue than an earth sky, a subtle reminder to him to expect the unexpected, cause this wasn't Earth, and this wasn't a vacation they were on from the ship. This planet's yellow sun was still high in the sky, so they should have daylight to finish their scavenging. In the shuttle, Morrison stepped too close to Rush, saying something about the planet they were on, and almost touching him. Rush took a couple of steps back and shot him a withering look; whatever he said to Morrison was done too quietly for Ron to catch, but it fired up Morrison into jabbing Rush in the shoulder while he raised his voice, still arguing. Rush turned away, not arguing back, and if Morrison kept it up as they hiked to the alien gate then Ron would have to shut him up. 

It should have been Lisa here instead of Morrison. She didn't complain when things got tough. She never had, and now, when she was blind, she was still always on the lookout for how she could contribute. Just one of the reasons he'd fallen for her.

Morrison was a whiner, and those types never sat well with him.

Didn't mean he couldn't feel for someone when they'd gotten a hard knock. His mother had taught him better than that. To see someone trying to keep a brave face when they were scared to death or grieving, that always got to him. If an arm around their shoulder, or a hug, or protecting them from danger with his own body would ease them, protect them, save them, then that was his purpose in life. Maybe he wouldn't have joined the Marines if he'd gotten that athletic scholarship years ago, but he'd have chosen a profession that would let him be a protector. But it had worked out for the best; the Marines had honed his instincts, and he'd found brothers and sisters within their ranks. 

He knew a lot of people he'd met had dismissed him as an aggressive angry man, a shade on the crazy side, and if that was what he saw in their eyes he'd let out what Eli had called his psycho smile. But Colonel Young had never pigeonholed him like that and had found ways to let Ron know that he trusted him, relied on him. The man had looked out for him, too, and had made damn sure he hadn't died like a rat in a cage when Icarus had been attacked. 

Matt had stepped up to the plate and confronted the Colonel when he'd been in that dark place in his mind, as dark as the damn closets Ron's father had tormented him with, and Ron had done his part by showing the Colonel that he trusted him to do what was right. Handshakes, not hugs, was how he'd let the Colonel know he was looking out for him. An arm over his shoulder, pulling him into a rib squeezing hug, like he could do with Matthew and even TJ and James and Camile, would reverse their roles too much. Ron supported the Colonel, but he couldn't step up to be on even footing with him, not even when the man desperately needed someone to stand shoulder to shoulder with him.

Camile couldn't do it, either. Her heart was back on earth, and her focus was getting them back there. The Colonel, though, had committed to Destiny's mission once Rush had shared it with him. On that the Colonel and Rush did stand side by side. 

Rush could be the one for the Colonel in other ways, too. Ron wasn't a fool, and he wasn't down on people for who they loved, so he wasn't blind to the attraction between Rush and the Colonel. He'd seen the way the Colonel would stand too close to Rush, the way Rush would watch the Colonel. It wasn't always because of disagreements between them. Not his business, though, and since he'd been checking out the road to the alien gate while thinking, he waved the other three men forward from the shuttle. He could multi-task right along with Rush and Eli, although Eli was better at it than the older scientist. Rush, he needed less distractions around him in order to keep his mind on the tasks he was juggling back and forth. Eli could banter, eat a sandwich, and listen to music while still keeping his mind occupied with six different workarounds for handling the ship. 

When the group caught up to him, the two scientists in the middle and the Colonel on their six, he moved them out at a brisk pace, lush, tall foliage bordering the colorful road. To Ron's mind, it provided excellent coverage for an ambush, so he kept himself on high alert.

Rush, he was still monitoring the kino, his brow furrowing in concentration and Ron was reminded of their trek to find Simeon on the desert planet he'd gone to ground. Morrison, the ass, had started back up on his whining to Rush, and Ron motioned for him to move forward into Ron's personal space.

Leaning over, once the man was close enough, he said, “Lay off Doc; he's got a job to do.”

Hotly, Morrison said, “I'm a exo-geophysicist, and if he thinks he can--”

Ron made a sound that stopped Morrison mid sentence. “You're doing this again,” and he brought up a hand and made flapping mouth gestures with it, “when you need to be doing this.” He pushed his fingers together in a silenced press. “If you can't manage that I promise I will help you keep your mouth shut. Do we have an understanding, Doctor Morrison?”

Morrison gave him a dirty look, his stubbled face flushed with anger, but he dropped back and didn't say anything else. Colonel Young caught his eye and Ron gave him a small nod, which was returned. Rush glanced once at Morrison, then at Ron, and shot him a curious look before returning his attention to the kino monitor.

Ten minutes later, they'd arrived at the gate, huge and strange with its angular shape and softly hued blue metal. Now that he had work to do, Morrison settled back down and stopped glaring at both Rush and Ron. The two scientists put their heads together and pawed through the equipment Morrison had stored in his backpack, then separated and started running tests of some kind, scanning the gate. 

Rush looked elated and would stop what he was doing frequently to pull out a battered little notebook and write something down. Every so often, he would chatter to the Colonel, the sound of his voice carrying, talking about capacitors and Naquadah alloys and subspace. His accent from wherever he was from, England, Scotland, Ireland, was thicker when he was caught up in something. Or when he was fighting mad, but he'd been fairly calm for quite a stretch now, even before they went into stasis. 

Colonel Young stayed close to Rush and Ron kept watch over Morrison. The man didn't look comfortable, the way he would stop every so often and stare around him. But it was quiet here, just the sound of the wind and the occasional chirping from an insect that reminded Ron of a cricket. The air felt damp and the clouds hinted at a shower coming their way. Every fifteen minutes, the Colonel would check in with Telford and Matthew and James and share their status reports with him, meeting in the middle between where the two other men were working. So far, they hadn't found any aliens in the town or out in the fields. 

Hours went by, the sky clouded up and began a light drizzle but they kept working. Rush pried open a panel at the base of the gate and was probing inside it on his back, his body halfway inside the space. Greer kept himself in that alert state of wary readiness as this planet's sun inched down the sky toward the horizon.

Glancing over, he saw that Rush's legs were no longer sticking out from the base of the gate and that the Colonel held a kino monitor in one hand, his rifle in the other. Rush must have found something under the gate to check out, he guessed. He thumbed his radio and the Colonel confirmed it. 

Sometimes Ron almost forgot that they were in the business of space exploration, about learning about and acquiring alien tech. Man, so much of their time was just spent on survival. The Colonel was used to gate missions like this, though, having been a SGC team leader for so many years. He'd watched over the science guys on his team doing their thing like he was watching Rush right now. When Ron had been stationed on PIX-874, the Colonel had brought his team to study the Ancient lab that had been taken over by the Goa'uld. Nice guys, the Colonel's old team. Shame that they'd all been killed by the Alliance when they'd been attacked on the planet, but if the Colonel had formed a new team, Greer would have asked for a place on it. Instead, he'd gone with him to Icarus. 

The next time Ron glanced at his watch, he saw that they were down to fifty minutes before Destiny would jump. The Colonel noticed and flashed the fingers of one hand four times. Twenty minutes, then they'd have the shuttle pick them up and they'd head back to Destiny. He shared the plan with Morrison, who looked relieved. The man was just not cut out to be on a gate team, in Ron's opinion.

Shifting the rifle in his hands, watching, waiting, guarding Morrison as he wrapped up examining the alien DHD, Ron heard the Colonel yell, “God damn it, Rush!” 

“C'mon,” he said to Morrison, and they ran over towards Colonel Young. 

* * *

“Be careful out there,” David said, finishing up his instructions, and the group of nine, all military, split into three groups and entered the alien town. What appeared to be homes were divided into spiral clusters off a main street that ended in a park like area with large foliage and different, larger buildings surrounding it. He waved for the first team to enter a cluster on the left, the second to investigate a cluster on the right, and Dunning, Barnes, and he headed straight for the end of this street, stopping to check out the cluster nearest the park before doing recon on the large boxy buildings. 

They were being cautious and taking advantage of Destiny's tech. So far, the scientists on Earth hadn't been able to duplicate the kinos; they were another one of Bill Lee's projects. Now, if McKay could be persuaded to help, David was certain he'd figure them out. In fact, if David could get McKay on board, he was positive that their ability to utilize what the Ancients had on Destiny would be greatly, greatly improved. 

Each group was equipped with four kinos, two to a monitor and the third person to guard them when their attention was on flying the little camera balls. Rush had done a cursory search earlier on a kino, which was still floating in the middle of town. If people were here, they were hiding. He couldn't blame them. They probably did look like marauders. 

This place was almost like a ghost town, except there was proof that people similar to their own in some ways had recently been here. Food had been in the process of being prepared, what they assumed were toys were scattered on floors, tech devices were left lying on tables, and windows were half open, letting in the damp breeze. Clothes had been in heaps in one house, dirty and on the floor of what seemed to be a laundry room. Wet clean clothes had been found in the washer, when his small team went in to investigate. 

The clothes were made to fit at least one person who was pretty small and very stocky, the colors splotchy tan and brown and green. These people had two arms and two legs. One head. Not that surprising really. Form followed function usually, and evolution had shaped most intelligent land dwellers to exist as bipedals. Even the Gou'ald had gravitated to life forms that had this shape. Probably the real differences between these small people and humans would be in their bio-chemistry. 

They finished their search of this house and several others. The colors of the walls and doors had been bland, there had hardly been anything colorful at all in these residences, in contrast to the attractive color of the roads. No pictures of the inhabitants were found, either. Oddly, the furniture they'd seen seemed to be made for both large and small people, but the smaller chairs were grouped around the tables. The doors and ceilings were large in height, and they were not locked. Their doors didn't even have locks, which spoke a lot about the trust these people had for their neighbors. They must not get hostiles coming in, probably because of the shield that made this planet seem empty or, if they were invaded they left through their stargate. 

Probably they weren't native to this world, though. The shuttle's sensors hadn't indicated any larger settlements than this one, when it had flown down to the surface. There was a lot more land that was being farmed on the other side of the town, though, away from the Ancient's stargate. They didn't have the time to pick crops from those fields, unfortunately.

This whole setup reminded him of some of the places that had grown Kassa for the Lucian Alliance. An isolated world, hiding their operation from starship scanners? A relatively small group of farmers that were practiced at disappearing in a hurry? Yeah. Except for the bit about the locks. That didn't fit in with growing a drug crop that people would kill their grandmothers to possess.

Well, if their crops put them under the influence, it didn't work on humans. Some of the plants seemed to be ripe enough to eat, and they were being stripped right now by the pickers and packed back through their stargate to Destiny.

Returning back to the main street, by the park, Barnes said, “Sir? There's some tables over there. I'd like to dump our junk on it.” Her eyes darted to the side, suddenly, but there was nothing there. He didn't know Barnes that well. Maybe she was naturally edgy. 

He nodded. “Let's go.” Barnes and Dunning were packing what Rush had referred to as trade goods. Except for a few things, most of it wouldn't have even made it into a garage sale back home.

The tables were tan and made of some material like synthetic stone, plus they were another combination of large and small heights. Really, he wouldn't fit at the small tables with the bench seats, although Barnes did, looking like a high schooler sitting in a third grader's desk. The tall tables, on the other hand, would have made him feel like a five-year-old sitting at the grownups table. Hell, it didn't even look like his feet would reach the ground. 

Barnes and Dunning dumped out their packs, spreading out the items, arranging them. The sun glinted off a wedding ring, and he knew that it been Everett's. He was tempted to snatch it up, keep it safe and give it back to the man, but on second thought, maybe it would be less painful for his friend without that ring to remind him of Emily.

Beautiful Emily, tall, dark blonde, and those eyes. She'd been sophisticated in some ways, a little naïve in others, and passionate. He hated that he'd met her the way he had because anything between them was tainted by his having been brainwashed. He'd lied to her about Everett continuing his affair with TJ on Destiny solely to keep destroying Everett's ability to function, so he could hopefully take over. He'd done it for the Lucian Alliance. It hadn't been personal. Except, at night, when he couldn't sleep, he would wonder if maybe it had been personal. That the friendly rivalry between them had shifted into something hard and determined and wanting that was all him, not his messed up head. 

Everett had stolen his mission. Hell, when Icarus was attacked he should told Everett to go up in the 302 and he'd see the people to safety. He'd have given the order to evacuate to Earth immediately, before the planet's core had spiked into the red. Maybe he'd have redialed the ninth chevron with what Rush and Eli had figured out then, but he for damn sure wouldn't have brought all those unfortunates with him. God damn the House that had been leaked the information about Icarus. They had shredded to bits Kiva's more reasonable plan to wait and let the Tauri do the heavy lifting. He refused to feel guilty for the way Everett's marriage had finally crashed, though. The erosion in that foundation had happened long before Everett had decided it was a good idea to make love to his wife while wearing David's body. 

He felt a hot stab of arousal just thinking about how it had felt to jolt back into his body and see and feel Everett's wife, naked, those sounds coming from her, riding him, and how close he was to coming. He'd orgasmed so hard, confused, and sex-dazed, and feeling a dirty thrill at what was happening because it wasn't his fault. He'd had probably the best orgasm of his life because of that sensation of breaking a taboo, of stealing what wasn't his, and he had the perfect alibi. Everett had made the decision to use David's body in such an intimate way; he hadn't. He hadn't had sex with anyone on Destiny, even though some of the scientists had caught his eye. He liked scientists for the most part, enjoyed being with intelligent people. And there was something quite enticing about seducing them from living in their minds to fully engaging with their bodies. But, he hadn't done that. Hadn't muddied the waters with sex on Destiny. There were plenty of scientists at Homeworld Command and the SGC if he wanted to enjoy himself that way. 

At least those disconcerting dives back into your own body because of a FTL jump or going through the gate wouldn't disturb anyone in the future, now that they'd fixed that glitch with the stones.

He checked the time, and then thumbed his radio on. “Lieutenant Scott, this is Telford. Bring the shuttle into town. It's time to pack up what we can use.”

Scott acknowledged him, and he gave orders to the other two teams to start stripping the houses of whatever looked useful to pack into the shuttle when it arrived.

His team would check out the larger buildings, see if there was anything there that could be scavenged.

* * * 

“This is Telford, status check.” David waited for the others to report in.

Young answered first. “Rush and Morrison are still studying the gate. No alien activity. Rush wants to try dialing. I haven't decided if that's a really bad idea or a good one.”

“Could be risky. We might let unfriendlies know we're here that way.” David thought privately that if Rush wanted to step through that gate to an unknown alien world, he'd let him go. Maybe they could lose him permanently. 

“At any rate, I told him if we do, it'll be after our pickers and supplies are back on Destiny. James, report.”

“James here. Everything's going great,” and despite her professional tone of voice, she sounded exulted. “It's sprinkling now, but the pickers are still stripping the bushes of berries and those seed pod things. We're taking back wood... stuff. Samples of plants, too, a lot of the small ones in the fields. Found what looks like vegetable gardens, also, and we're taking back plants and produce. We've sent another load of stuff back to Destiny. Mostly water cans. Those kino skimmer sleds Rush found have been a great help. And Brody says to let you know that he hasn't had any luck finding the power source for the shield with the ship's scanners.”

Young said, “See that you finish up and get everybody back on board in three hours. Scott?”

“Yes, sir. I've just moved the shuttle to the middle of the town and the teams are bringing in things we can use. It's mostly food items, some fabric, tools. Oh, and a couple of balls, about the size of soccer ones. Guess these guys like to kick or throw them around. We can start up some soccer teams on board.” 

Scott's voice sounded light, relieved. Like James. This crew had been through hard times, not enough to eat, not enough water to drink, their clothes becoming ragged. He'd never tell Everett this, but people at Homeword Command had nicknamed them The Castaways. If David couldn't get these people home yet, at least this was a good start for this new galaxy; morale would pick up just from knowing there would be food for them for the next weeks. Something like weekly soccer games would help normalize these people's lives, let them feel less like survivors clinging to a life boat and more like a regular crew aboard a ship.. He liked soccer, maybe there would be time for a game or two before switching back with Eli.

“David?” Everett said.

“My team is checking out the industrial buildings. So far it looks to just be farm machinery.”

“Okay,” Everett said. “Check back in fifteen minutes. And keep an eye out for something that might be the shield control, since we haven't seen anything close to the gate. Could be something decorative, we've seen that before, or maybe in a hidden room. If we find it Rush wants to examine it. Young out.”

Barnes and Dunning were looking at him, waiting for orders. “Let's keep on checking these buildings out. Stay sharp. We've come across other people that hid their real civilization behind the facade of just being farmers.”

Dunning spoke up. “Yes, sir. The Genii, in Pegasus. I lost a buddy to them.”

“So use your scanners, look for things that don't fit or don't make sense, wrong dimensions of the buildings, radiation, anything that seems off.”

They resumed searching the buildings, but other than finding controls that opened a few large closets that held supplies, nothing twigged any of them. 

So David really wasn't expecting Everett to call thirty-five minutes before they were due to leave and report that Rush had vanished from a chamber beneath the alien gate.

* * *

 

**Safe House. Earth**

 

“It's been forty hours since you upped that damned device. Malin's not adjusting to it; he's worse,” Mary said, and saw the same concern she was feeling written on Drugov's face. “You have to go back to the previous setting. Or at least take his wrist inhibitor off and let him try to stop the pain on his own.” 

She dropped her head into her hands for a few stolen moments, then looked at Drugov again from across the kitchen table. He grimaced and pushed a bottle of water towards her, and she nodded. She couldn't afford to let herself get dehydrated. She felt exhausted with trying to soothe Malin; she'd had even less sleep than he had. She'd dropped into unconsciousness on her bed as soon as Malin had fallen asleep, but he'd woken up again only an hour later, miserable, with tears rolling down his cheeks, too worn out to even throw a fit. She was the only one he would let hold him, and her back ached from walking him around with his head on her shoulder. 

He was asleep again, thank God.

How she wished that his current dreams were useless remembrances from Doctor Rush's life. Instead, they were the counter-point to her argument to lessen the intensity of the device that was attached to Malin's head. The scientists assigned to studying Malin were adamant that they were finally making real progress in understanding what had happened after Rush had climbed into the neural interface chair and ascended. 

Drugov bit his lip. “I already tried both of those things, Mary. When you were asleep.”

“Then try an even lower setting on the mind device,” she said, “if taking off his wrist inhibitor didn't help.” 

Most of the staff were intent on watching their monitors as Malin's dream played out in real time and they weren't paying attention to them. In his bed, Malin rolled restlessly over onto his side, curling into a fetal position. He'd be waking up again soon from another nightmare, probably.

“No, I mean, I asked for permission to lower the settings from the doctor who's signing off on all of this, and he said that the scans we've made with that gadget from Atlantis showed no damage, nothing wrong at all. He also insisted that Malin's vitals didn't warrant changing it back. His head, his heart, his lungs, they're fine.” His voice was apologetic, his expression tense. “I wasn't given permission to take off the inhibitor and see if he can make himself feel better.”

“He's in pain, though. I understand that the scans ruled out nerve damage or anything abnormal, but it doesn't change the fact that forcing his subconscious to regurgitate Doctor Rush's memories is _hurting_ him.” She felt her hands clenching into fists and made herself straighten them back out. Rubbed her hands against her jeans until she was sure she could pick up the bottle of water and drink from it, not throw it against the wall. After a long swallow she said, “What about the adults who've used it, did they have this much discomfort with it?”

“Hmm. Have you had access to all of the SGC's reports on the device?” Drugov leaned forward, lowering his voice. 

“No. But I heard enough about it to know I wouldn't want one attached to my head.” Most of what happened at the SGC was classified above her clearance, but some of the other scientists, like Bill Lee, tended to ramble on anyway about missions and projects, regardless of who was listening. 

“General Carter's experience is similar to our little buddy's,” Drugov said, in hushed tones. “Did you ever hear that Carter got snaked? One of the Tokra jumped her; it wasn't something Carter agreed to do. She wasn't a host for very long before the symbiote died. Later on, for a mission, Carter had to recall lost memories from her symbiote, ones that she couldn't consciously pull forth. When the mind device was set on high, Carter did remember some things but she also experienced Jolinar's torture before the setting was lowered. I heard it was extremely painful.”

Mary grimaced. “Doctor Rush was tortured by the Lucian Alliance and the Nakai.” Amanda hadn't said more than that and Mary wasn't sure where she'd learned about it. She doubted Doctor Rush had told her anything. “If Malin starts to feel _that_ , not just this awful constant headache, then the device _has_ to be removed.”

“Our little guy's setting is about three down from what Carter used, before Jolinar's memories forced her to drop down the intensity.” Drugov studied his knuckles. This was hard on him, too, she knew. He'd gotten attached to Malin, but if he openly defied his orders about the device then at a minimum he would be sent away. The other medics in the project were not on Malin's side. She'd try to shield Drugov from any consequences from protesting Malin's current treatment, but it might end up with him having to choose between being a soldier and being a medic. 

“Do you know how Doctor Rush was tortured?” she asked cautiously. “You've had a lot more access to records than me.”

Drugov spread his hands out in an open gesture. “I've read everything on Rush Homeworld Command had, but the guy left a lot out when he made his reports, in my opinion. But, I know the Alliance used a pain stick on him. It's like a supercharged tazer. The Nakai cut open his chest to implant a tracker next to his heart and he was assaulted mentally by them. They had him immersed in a tank of water; that would feel like torture to me, trapped like that.” 

She grabbed Drugov's big hand. “You took an oath, same as me, to do no harm. I know this has been an ambiguous situation so far, but re-experiencing Rush's suffering would cross that line.” 

“I won't let that happen,” Drugov said, and she let go of him. “And I'll back you when you talk to O'Neill.”

“Thank you.” She glanced at her watch. “He should be at Homeworld Command in an hour, according to his aide. He's been offworld. If he can't be reached then I'm going to the IOA. That's what O'Neill told me to do if he was gone too long.”

“I've heard Strom is tight with General Telford.” Drugov frowned, his brows wrinkling.

“I know. I know that Strom is considered the heavy weight with the IOA, but Richard Woolsey agreed with O'Neill about having me here. He's got a lot of clout, too. I would talk to him.” Woolsey was someone who people had strong opinions about. He could be harsh, she knew that, and rigid, although she'd heard that being in charge of Atlantis had changed him somewhat. She'd heard he'd become more flexible, more understanding of the difficulties the SGC and Homeworld Command faced. Woolsey might consider Malin's well being over his value as an informant. Strom, she knew already, would not.

Drugov said, “I've read all the reports where the memory recall device was used, but Malin's setting isn't as high as what was used on SG1 the times they were captured. Hathor and Sokar used it on them, but Sokar threw in a narcotic. The Blood of Sokar. Man, the Goa'uld were a pretentious bunch with their language. But, that's another reason the doc won't sign off on lowering Malin's settings. There were no lasting effects from their usage.”

“What an adult can tolerate does not translate into what a child can handle,” Mary said, her temper rising again.

“I agree.” Drugov shook his head, then stretched, his arms reaching up towards the ceiling. “I hope General Jack will override Doctor Chang.” He shot her a speculative look. “Hey, maybe you could ask for a second opinion from the little guy's usual doctor?”

Her brain felt like mush, such an obvious thing to do and she hadn't considered it. God, she needed sleep. “That's a good idea; I should have thought of that. Doctor Lam was Malin's doctor. She's on maternity leave from the SGC, but I have her home phone number from when I was caring for my last patient. If O'Neill can't order the setting down, I'll contact her.” Mary had consulted with Carolyn Lam any number of times about Amanda Perry, and to avoid unnecessary delays, Mary had been told to call Doctor Lam directly if she wasn't at the SGC.

Drugov got up and walked over to the coffee pot and filled a gigantic mug that said, “Instant Medic. Just Add Coffee.” He waved the mug in her direction after taking a gulp, but she shook her head. She was hopeful that Malin would stay asleep for a while after her phone call and she could get some rest herself. 

Returning, Drugov sat down at the table, the coffee aroma tempting her to give in and get her own mugful. He said, “General Telford, he's still on Destiny, isn't scheduled to return till tomorrow, but you know he won't order us to reduce the intensity of the mind device.”

“That's a given. And if I hear one word about the greater good, from _anybody,_ I'm going to punch their ticket,” she said, scowling. 

Drugov held his hands up in a placating gesture. “Make the call, Miss Mary. But if O'Neill isn't back yet, or says to hold off, we're going with plan D. When he wakes up, Doctor Chang authorized me to start him on an opioid. Maybe it will help.”

“Morphine, I suppose.” She was tempted to remove the device right this minute, but if she did they would only re-attach the thing and from what Drugov had said, the shock of returning to the higher setting would be worse than just letting Malin keep on adjusting. In fact, it was surprising to her that Malin didn't try to take it off. She didn't have the passcode to his wrist device, either. General Telford kept that to himself, but she hoped Jack O'Neill knew it since Telford was not available.

“Yeah. If it doesn't stop his headache, at least it might put him into a deeper sleep,” Drugov said. His expression showing consternation as he obviously thought of something, he added, “Or it might work like the stuff that Sokar forced SG1 to drink; it made their memories seem even more real.”

“Malin isn't remembering anything when he wakes up though. You know what I think?” Mary scrubbed her hands over her eyes. “We've seen that the memory device can't make him consciously remember his past and I'm betting that's because he was ascended. Who ever did that to Doctor Rush and then turned him into a human child again altered his brain so those memories of ascension weren't accessible directly to him.” 

“And those are the memories we need. Have you looked at what they're seeing in his dreams?” Drugov's eyebrows rose, apparently thinking about it. “They're incredible.”

She shook her head. “No. I've had my hands full.”

“You know, Doctor Jackson couldn't remember his life as an ascended being either, not even when one of the Goa'uld used the memory device on him,” Drugov said, and yawned. It was contagious and Mary found herself mimicking him, a wave of sleepiness making her limbs feel heavy and her eyes droop.

He said, “Why don't you try to get some sleep for the next hour. I'll keep monitoring his blood pressure and heart rate, everything. If it shifts into affecting his vitals, I will pull medical rank.” Drugov dug his fingers and thumb into the skin of his forehead across his eyebrows, looking a lot older than his years. “That rocking chair you wanted was delivered while you were conked out. Maybe that will help him feel better.”

Mary stood up and walked over to Malin's bed. His face screwed up suddenly, and she suspected his headache had spiked again. He moved his hand to his mouth and started sucking his thumb in his sleep. She'd never seen him do that before and it hadn't been in his medical records from Doctor Lam. He might be regressing or maybe he'd found it helped to distract himself from the discomfort. “Oh, baby,” she said, and stroked his sweat-dampened hair. Jack O'Neill was about to get an earful.

* * *

**Stargate Command. Cheyenne Mountain.**

“Sir,” Walter said on the intercom. “Dr. Lam is here to see you. She said it's urgent.”

“Send her in.” Hank Landry waved his daughter into his office, and stood up. The paperwork on his desk could wait. Carolyn looked fine, as beautiful as ever, but maybe a little tired since her eyes seemed a little heavy-lidded. He knew the baby wasn't sleeping through the night yet. He also knew that whatever was going on to bring Carolyn back to the Mountain before her maternity leave was up, it wasn't about his grandson. She would have told him on the phone or asked him to drop by her house if it concerned Dylan.

“Carolyn,” he said and wrapped her in a warm hug. “How are you doing? How's Dylan and John?”

“John's like me, a little sleep deprived, but Dylan is fine.” Her smile lit up her face. “He's nursing well and gaining weight. Come over for dinner tomorrow and see for yourself?”

“I'd like that, honey.” He had a second chance to be close to his family, and he was determined to do a better job as a grandfather than he had as a father. Sure, he and Carolyn were talking now and their relationship just kept improving, but it was one of his greatest failings that he'd missed so much of her childhood. He understood why the Ancients had been so obsessed with the notion of time and had tried to go back and fix the mistakes that had poisoned their future, before giving up and leaving this plane of existence. But like them, he had to learn to let those regrets go. 

“So, what brings you here?”

“Dad, I have a favor to ask. It's about Malin.”

* * *

An hour later, after some shouting on his end, Hank and Carolyn and the equipment she'd requested had been beamed out of the SGC by the General Hammond and deposited at Joint Base Andrews, in Maryland. Malin's safe house was only minutes away, somewhere between the base and Rosaryville State Park and the small town of Marlton. Malin would be brought to the 79th's health care facility, the 779 Medical, for Carolyn to examine. 

A tall, thin man greeted them with a salute after the shimmer of the Asgard beam disappeared. Hank returned it, musing over thoughts of the first time he'd been here. 

“General Landry, Doctor Lam, if you will come with me, I'll take you to the Medical Group. It's on the west side of the base. Doctor, I'll take that for you.” He reached for the large suitcase on wheels and Carolyn let go. She still carried a black bag over her shoulder. She'd told him that it contained her breast pump and a small cooler. Unless they could return in an hour or so, she'd need to use it. 

Hank glanced at the name and rank on the man's Air Force uniform. “Thank you, Major Chen. I've been here before, flown in from 'Nam. Of course, back then it was called Andrews Hospital. The 79th does good work.”

Major Chen smiled, transforming his solemn expression into a warm one. “Yes, sir, they do. Welcome back. If you don't mind me asking, were you injured in Vietnam? I believe you were a pilot, weren't you sir?” He took a few steps, silently inviting them to follow him and they walked together down the corridor. 

“I flew a bird. Got shot down and a little beat up. The 79th did some repair work after I came back to the states.” He never regretted being sent to Vietnam. If he hadn't, he'd have never met Kim and married her; they would never have had Carolyn.

“Doctor, have you ever been here before?” 

“No, Major,” she said, at the same time as he said “Yes.” Major Chen looked a little confused.

Hank shot a glance at her. “You were a baby; you wouldn't remember. You had a high fever from a virus, and we lived not too far from here when I was stationed at Washington. You know your mother, she can't stand living in cities, so we had a little house out in the country.”

Major Chen's expression showed that he'd figured out Carolyn was his daughter. Carolyn shot the Major a tight, cool smile. She really wasn't big on people she interacted with professionally knowing about their relationship. Anymore, though it was an open secret at the SGC. 

“Then welcome back to you also, Doctor,” Chen said, and ushered them down a corridor on the right. 

When they'd arrived at a large exam room equipped with medical apparatus, Chen touched his earpiece and spoke quietly, just out of hearing range. Carolyn opened the suitcase she brought and took out a jump drive.

“Your patient has arrived, Doctor. They're going through the checkpoints now. He'll be here in ten minutes. I'm going to go escort him and his party to you. If you need anything, hit 113 on the phone and someone will assist you.” He nodded to them and strode out of the room. 

Carolyn plugged the jump drive into a computer in the corner. She sat down and started pulling up files, flashing through them quickly until she stopped at one and opened it, and stilled. Hank eyed the door and then moved behind her. The name of the file brought up old feelings of guilt and sadness.

“Orlin,” he said. 

“Yes. I think his experience could be relevant. I'll know more once I examine Malin.” She had her poker face on because Carolyn hated losing any of her patients, but she wouldn't let others see how their deaths devastated her. 

She busied herself with reading through the file, and Hank ran a hand through his hair. He'd gone to the funeral. So had Carolyn and SG1. Samantha Carter had spoken at the service, and the rest of SG1, Mitchell and Jackson and Teal'c, had closed ranks around her. Vala hadn't rejoined the team yet, he remembered. 

Carter had spoken of sacrifice, of selflessness, of the protectiveness Orlin had felt towards the Tauri, and before them, the people he had assisted on a far away planet. Of moral disobedience, and how he'd accepted the consequences of breaking ranks with the other ascended Ancients in order to warn them of the dangers of the Ori. Of his brilliance and creativity, even for an Ancient, apparently. She'd smiled through her tears when she recounted how Orlin, the first time he descended, had built a stargate in her basement with a jumble of parts that included cannibalizing her toaster. 

There were no humorous stories about the second time Orlin descended. 

“He was a good man,” Hank said softly.

“It would be more accurate to say he was a good person, no matter what form he took, ascended Ancient, man, or boy,” Carolyn said, and she turned around to meet his eyes. “We failed him after he took physical form as a child. He should have been protected.” She pressed her lips together into a tight line. “Instead we allowed him to keep pushing himself to the point of destroying his mind.”

Hank recalled the boy's face, the demeanor that seemed at odds with his age, his stubborn determination to help them. “There's no 'we', Carolyn. As I remember, you objected to Orlin's decision to keep trying to retain his Ancient memories.”

Carolyn looked bleak. “I should have sedated him until his Ancient memories had vanished.” He never understood how some people said that his daughter was cold and not caring. It was so clear to him the pain she felt when she couldn't save someone, her fierce dedication to her patient's health. 

“We needed his asisstance.” Hank added gently, “He saved millions of lives with the work he did on the Ori plague cure.”

Carolyn sighed, “After he left notes for us to follow, we should have acted for his benefit. Maybe it was already too late, but I'll always regret not overriding his desire to keep helping.”

He remembered Orlin as a blond haired child, a boy of about thirteen. He'd kept discounting the exhaustion he obviously was feeling, and Hank had let him keep on destroying himself. “I was the one who asked him to keep putting his brain on the line by going with me to confront that Prior. And it was for nothing. But I think that strain on Orlin was the last straw.”

The damage to Orlin's brain had been greater than anyone had guessed. Not only did he lose his Ancient memories, but his current ones as a human boy had slipped away, too. Finally, he forgot how to do things like feed himself, and ultimately, subconscious bodily functions also faltered.

“He didn't recognize her anymore, but Sam kept visiting him,” Carolyn said. “Even after he slipped into a coma and had to be on life support.”

“Do you think the same thing might happen to Malin?”

“Yes.” Then she made a hedging gesture with her hand. “Maybe. Orlin was an Ancient and had been ascended for countless eons; Doctor Rush's time as an ascended being was only a few years, but we just don't know enough about what he might have learned while in a higher plane. Forcing these memories might damage Malin's mind like Orlin's mind was damaged or he might escape by ascending again.”

“That's why you brought the ascendometer?” Carolyn had requested it from the infirmary, where it had been parked since little Malin had been in that coma.

“When some of Malin's previous memories broke through because of the music trigger, we almost lost him to ascension. And that was just his mathematical skill set. Forcing his actual memories as an ascended being could do it, I'm afraid,” she said, looking worried.

“Is General Telford aware of this?”

“I sent him my concerns after Malin was put into his custody, but until this latest change in the intensity of the mind recall device, he assured me that Malin only experienced some mild discomfort and a relatively quick adjustment to the devices settings.” She gave him a curious look. “These questions aren't unexpected, but I thought you'd want to ask them before agreeing to back me up on my request to see Malin.”

He smiled at her. “Seemed like an unnecessary waste of time, honey. If you say you need me to do something for you, I trust that you have a good reason.” He put his hand on her shoulder.

“Thanks, Dad,” she said and reached up to grasp it.

* * * 

**Joint Base Andrews, Maryland**

Mary followed Drugov and Major Chen down the wide hallway carrying a bag with Malin's clothes and his Rubik's cube and a few other things to keep his attention off his headache. She probably could have left the toys and drawing materials back at the safe house. Malin had been not interested in them during the ride over to the base.

Malin's headache hadn't improved with the liquid dose of morphine Drugov had given him, but it left him very drowsy. He was too sleepy to put up much of a fuss about Drugov carrying him, his head on the big airman's shoulder; Malin's eyes were watching her steadily and she gave him a smile.

“We have a nice surprise waiting for you, Malin,” she said, but he just glared at her, the jut of his lower lip signaling his unhappiness. He'd wanted her to hold him, but her back was killing her so she'd reluctantly told him she couldn't carry him right now. He'd refused to sit in a wheel chair, holding onto Drugov like a little monkey.

She was sure General O'Neill would have ordered the mind recall device turned down, if she'd been able to contact him. Unfortunately, he was still delayed off world. But Doctor Lam had been very concerned when Mary had called and had said she'd see what General Landry could do to get her permission to examine Malin. She was grateful to both of them for stepping in.

Malin started sucking his thumb again. He'd been doing it off and on ever since he woke up with it in his mouth. At least the thumb sucking seemed to avert the tantrums he'd been throwing. They could worry later about getting him to stop. 

They followed Major Chen through the base until he stopped at a room and pushed open the door. Drugov stepped inside and Mary watched as Malin noticed General Landry, his eyes widening.

“Ms. Dupree,” General Landry said, nodding to her. “Jack O'Neill couldn't have chosen a better person to monitor the boy's well being. Sergeant Siler and his wife have been relieved to know you're with him.”

“I'm trying, General. That's why I asked for Doctor Lam's help.”

Drugov saluted General Landry and Malin shifted in his arm, glaring daggers at the General for some reason, then ignored him when Doctor Lam moved into his field of vision. 

“Hello, Malin,” Doctor Lam said, and Malin held out an arm to her, his thumb still planted in his mouth and wiggled halfheartedly against Drugov's chest.

She took him from the airman, and Malin put both arms around her neck and hugged her hard, tears starting to fall down his cheeks. Doctor Lam held him for a few minutes, just kind of humming to him, and swaying back and forth until he fell asleep on her shoulder, and Mary remembered that Doctor Lam had just had a baby. She must hold her own child that way, Mary supposed.

Doctor Lam laid Malin down on a gurney and he turned onto his side, not really waking up but not totally asleep either; he resumed sucking his thumb after opening and closing his fists a few times. 

“When did he start doing that?” Doctor Lam asked, looking down at Malin and running gentle fingers through his hair. After a moment Malin relaxed back into sleep again and she put up the gurney's railings. 

“Very recently. After the mind control device's setting was adjusted upward again,” Mary said. “We think he's either regressing or using it to help distract himself from the pain. He's been less agitated since doing it, we've noticed.”

“Has he been wetting the bed or having accidents?” Doctor Lam put two fingers against Malin's neck, and glanced at her watch.

“No. But he's been more clingy. He wants to be held more,” Mary said.

“Okay. But keep an eye out for any other behaviors that would indicate he's regressing psychologically into a younger age,” Doctor Lam said. “Mary, it's good to see you and I'm glad you contacted me. I haven't been able to access how Malin's been doing with the memory recall very much, just a few words from General Telford. I want to know everything. As I understand it, no medication, including the morphine, has eased his pain?”

“No, nothing.” Mary waved a hand towards the gurney. “Look at him. Even in sleep you can see the tension around his eyes, his forehead. I've been using a children's pain scale for him to self report and he chooses the highest setting every time. Usually, he's much more conservative, say, if he hurts himself. He jumped down from his climbing structure a few weeks ago and skinned up his knees and hands and cut himself and he didn't even pick the lowest setting then. He's not an over reporter.”

“I have a theory about his pain,” Doctor Lam said. “I'd like to consult with General Carter when she's available. She's studied the mind recall device quite extensively and all the spin off devices from it also. Especially after it was used on Vala Mal Doran by the Trust and she lost her memories for a time.”

Mary sighed with relief. At last, a medical ally with some clout, one that would have Malin's best interest in mind and not the damn greater good of the world. 

Handing a flashdrive to Doctor Lam, Mary said, “We brought copies of his records and some of his dream memories, too. But basically, he's not adjusting to this latest setting; he's in pain, but his vitals are good, and his scans can't identify what's wrong. I'm hoping you can shed some light on it and recommend to the IOA and General O'Neill and General Telford that the device needs to be turned back down, if not taken off entirely.”

“Let's take a look. Airman, you're a medic, correct? Get his blood pressure and temp and oxygen level, please. And while he's sleeping, I want to finish setting up the ascendometer.”

“The what?” Drugov said. “What kind of name is that?” then looked like he'd wished he'd kept his mouth shut as he went to a cabinet and started pulling out a blood pressure cuff and other things that Doctor Lam required.

General Landry spoke up, sounding tolerantly amused, “Blame Colonel Mitchell for that moniker.”

Mary remembered when Colonel Mitchell had joined the SGC. He'd cajoled most of the original members of SG1 into teaming back up and had always spoken to Amanda the few times they'd been in meetings together or he'd come down to the science labs. So many people had not looked Amanda in the face, or acknowledged her existence, and that casual indifference to another human being had always made Mary angry. 

Doctor Lam stuck the flashdrive into a computer port, speed reading through the files, then got up and made some adjustment to a machine and pushed it over next to to the gurney. Mary joined Doctor Lam. Drugov also went to assist her and gave her the readings he'd just taken. They were all normal.

“The ascendometer measures how close a human being is to ascending. We're borrowing it from Atlantis. Malin came much too close to ascension when he regained his math skills. I want to make sure he's not in danger of ascending again from the use of the mind recall device.” Doctor Lam held a strange headset in her hands, turning it over and over. 

Doctor Lam slid the crown like device on Malin's head and adjusted the size.

Once the monitor was set up, Doctor Lam watched it with narrowed eyes, as the readings started to climb. 

“General,” she said. “I don't like what I'm seeing. He's two/thirds of the way to ascension. I'm turning the mind recall device down to the last setting and let's see if his readings settle down to normal. If they don't, I'm recommending the mind recall device be removed. No, scratch that. _I_ will take responsibility for removing it. Can you get O'Neill and someone from the IOA, Woolsey preferably, on a video transmission? Also Doctor Chang. I'll explain to him exactly why I'm taking over Malin's care, since he's failed to consider the best interest of his patient. Malin's history should have indicated that he be monitored with the ascendometer. In fact, I hadn't realized he wasn't being checked until Mary called.”

Landry said, “Consider it done,” and stepped out of the room.

Mary smiled a little, relieved that Malin would soon not be in pain.

Drugov moved over to Malin and held up the control to the mind recall device and Doctor Lam nodded. After the setting was lowered down, the three of them watched the monitor. Five minutes went by. Then ten. Then twenty. When thirty minutes had passed with no lowering of the readings, Doctor Lam looked at her.

“Let's take it out, see what we get then.”

Drugov removed the device and spread a topical antibiotic over the small punctures in Malin's skin, then put a band-aid on top. Malin kept sleeping but his face smoothed out and he seemed more relaxed, some subtle tension that sleep and morphine hadn't eased now leaving his small body.

General Landry came in followed by a couple of airmen, two manhandling the biggest monitor screen Mary had ever seen into the room and one pushing a cart with sandwiches and drinks into the room. 

“I contacted O'Neill. He just got back from a negotiation off world, and he said to give him an hour. He's going to be beamed in and he's bringing a guest. The IOA and Chang will be joining us via video conferencing. How's the boy?”

Doctor Lam said, “I ordered the device to be removed because even with a lower setting he was still on the path to ascension. Now we wait and see.” 

Mary shot a look at the ascendometer screens. Malin's readings hadn't changed.

* * * 

 

**The Planet of Missing People**

 

“Colonel, we're out of time. Destiny's gonna jump in twenty-five minutes,” Scott radioed. “I've got the team from town on board and I'm headed your way.” 

Everett kept his expression stoic. “Acknowledged, Scott. We're still at the alien gate. Young out.” 

“Sir,” Greer said, shooting him a look. “I'll stay. Maybe by the time you drop Destiny out of FTL, I'll have found Rush.”

“That'll be you and me, Greer. I'm not leaving him behind.” Never again, Everett thought to himself. 

“Colonel Young, I've sent all the teams and kino skimmers back to the ship.” James' voice on the radio was crisp. Professional. “Except for one skimmer. Sir, with the shuttle back on Destiny, we're gonna need one to make decent time back to the gate once Doctor Rush is found. And he might be injured. Permission to join the team staying on the planet to search for him?” 

“Stay there until the shuttle makes orbit, Lieutenant. Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll turn up, late again, before the shuttle takes off and you can gate to the ship.” Damn, he wished that would be true. But highly unlikely, given the way most of their planet side missions usually ended up. James picked up on his sarcasm. 

“Yes, sir. I guess we're about due for some good luck,” she said, with a wry twist. “I'll be monitoring radio chatter. James out.”

“Greer, radio Scott, let him know that you, me, and James are staying,” Everett said quietly. 

“Yes, sir,” Greer said and thumbed his radio.

“Morrison, grab your gear. You're bugging out,” he yelled. Morrison came running up and shoved the kino remote into Young's hands. 

“I've looked at every display, monitor, and what I suppose are keyboards in those rooms, Colonel. My best guess? Rush triggered some kind of beaming out technology. He could be anywhere on the planet.” 

“What about the life signs detector?” Everett asked, but without much hope.

“It's working. It's clearly showing the rest of us, it's even showing the people in the shuttle. But they're all accounted for, none of those little green blips is Rush. He's either really far away – these things have a radius of thirty klicks – or he's somewhere that's shielded to this tech.”

They could hear the shuttle roaring up to their position; Morrison grabbed his backpack and shrugged into it. “What the hell was he doing in there under the stargate anyway, Colonel?” Morrison asked, picking up Rush's backpack and holding it against his chest.

“He was trying to learn more about the alien gate. He was under strict orders to just observe, record what he saw. Not to touch anything.”

“He must have done something. It'll be his own fault if he gets left here,” Morrison said, sounding angry. And kind of upset, Everett thought. Even if you weren't friends with one another, at this point nobody wanted to lose another crewmember.

“Shut the fuck up,” Greer said, leveling an impassive stare at the scientist. “We ain't leaving nobody here, understand?”

The shuttle touched down and Morrison sprinted for it. As the rear hatch opened, Telford stepped out, and Morrison practically bowled him over in his hurry to get on board.

Telford jogged over to him. “Everett, figured you could use me.” 

He extended a hand, Eli's hand, and Everett shook it, glad for the hard squeeze David gave him. David had been one of the best SGC team leaders when he'd been stationed at Cheyenne Mountain. His expertise would be welcomed. But...

“Eli's due to change back before we're liable to get off this planet.” Four hours at a minimum, and once Destiny had dropped out of FTL again, this planet might not be accessible and the ship would have to jump back. That meant possibly eight hours here even if they found Rush in an hour.

“I asked Scott to notify Homeworld Command to keep Eli there until we report that we're back on Destiny. Then we'll switch. Eli wouldn't be much help on this kind of search and rescue mission.” Telford glanced up at the sky. “Looks like we've got a couple more hours until it's night.”

The shuttle took off, roaring up into the sky. Young made an abortive move to check his watch. He kept forgetting that he'd given it to Rush. Greer noticed. Greer always noticed. He held his wrist up so Young could check the time. The shuttle should dock with Destiny with three minutes to spare. 

“Everett, what the hell happened?” David rocked on the balls of his feet, his weapon held ready, his eyes skimming the area. 

“Rush removed a panel at the side of the stargate platform,” Everett said, keeping his tone of voice controlled. “It held a monitoring station. He took a look, recognized equipment similar to what you find with our stargates. He also saw what seemed to be a hatch, some sort of access to another room deeper down.”

David glanced at Greer and gave him a nod. Greer returned it and moved towards them, covering the area that David had been watching. David trotted over to the side of the stargate and dropped down to his knees, peering in where Rush had entered. He looked over at Everett. “Yeah, I see where he removed the inner panel.” David looked back inside. “Jesus, how did he fit in here? I couldn't do it.”

“He took off his jacket and boots first, but it was still a really tight fit for him to wiggle through.” Everett glanced at where Rush had piled his boots and the fatigue jacket. “I think this was designed so that the alien's tech people could check things from either outside or from the inner rooms, which Rush did find. He sent a kino through first. The other rooms were empty. Seemed to be laboratories. Workspaces with monitors, computers, and other stuff. And just like in the town, there were different sized chairs, stools. Lab benches. ”

“You were in contact with him the entire time?” David asked sharply.

“Yes. I watched him with my kino remote. And he used his radio, so it's working. Or it was working.” Everett sighed. “He was really excited about what he was seeing.”

“But he didn't touch anything?”

Everett flashed back to the warning he'd given Rush. And Rush had agreed. _I'm not quite as foolish as Eli and Brody were when they were playing around with the stasis pods, Colonel. I've no desire to find myself trapped._ “I don't think he did. I didn't see him do anything. The work stations down there were already up and running and displaying readings. Rush took a good look at those and was recording them with the kino he had. Then he walked into a new room through an open doorway. He was looking for the shield controls. I was watching him; I'd just given him a time check that he had five minutes and then he had to come back.” 

“That's when he disappeared?”

“Yeah.” Everett snapped his fingers together. “Like that.” 

“I'd like to see the footage,” David said. 

“Sure. Let's see if there's something I missed. I don't recall any flash of light, or any different sounds when he disappeared. There was a soft background humming from the equipment running, but nothing else. He just winked out of existence.” Everett relived that moment in his mind. He'd maneuvered the kino to keep Rush in close camera range. Rush had been using his own kino to record the readings from a new alien monitor, and he'd been concentrating, a small furrow between his brows, a pencil in his mouth. Then in one blink, gone.

“A phase shift?” David asked, his eyes thoughtful.

Everett shrugged. “It was just him that disappeared, everything else in the room stayed put. He was as close as he could get to one of the machines, sitting on one of those tall stools, and it's still there. As far as I know the area around him and that stool would have disappeared, too.” He handed David the kino remote, after rewinding it back to where Rush first had entered the hidden rooms.

“So, probably he was beamed out. Maybe as a security protocol. Maybe he got tagged as an unauthorized intruder when he went down there.” David's eyes were on the small screen, watching intently as on the video Rush made comments out loud to Everett about what he was seeing and learning, sounding thrilled, sounding happy. A scientist in his element. 

Rush had been like tht the entire time he'd been studying the gate, telling Everett things he was learning, comparing this stargate to the versions in the Milky Way and Pegasus and Destiny. It had been a little strange, considering how usually Rush kept everything he was learning to himself, but Everett had recognized that this was Rush being cooperative and thrilled about his discoveries. He wondered if Rush had done the same thing with his wife, sharing his excitement about his work with her. He'd never met Rush's wife but he'd seen Rush with Doctor Perry quite a bit. There had been something exclusive about the pair of them, off in their own little world, and it had surprised him at the time, to see Rush actually holding long conversations with another human being. 

If David was correct... “Crap, he could be sitting in some kind of hidden holding cell right now, waiting for the people who live here to return.” 

If the inhabitants of this planet came back, maybe they could negotiate with them for Rush's return. Although, the fact that they'd basically just ransacked the town and their fields wasn't going to endear them to these aliens. They might have to do a jail break. Or maybe Rush was working right now on freeing himself. He was an extremely clever guy, knowledgeable in both theoretical and practical applications. He was like Rodney McKay in that aspect, and Rodney had gotten his team out of incarceration numerous times. But if he couldn't... Everett did not want to find himself in armed conflict with these people, these farmers, if the evidence could be believed. But to get Rush back, he'd do it. 

“You know, something similar happened on his first mission with me, back at the SGC,” David said, and there was something dark in his voice. “We were searching P5X-446. He figured out where Nirti's lab was and got ringed down inside it. By himself.”

“He's a scientist, and as curious as a cat. But that's why you had him on the team, wasn't it, David? To find it for you?” Everett asked, remembering David mentioning before they went into stasis that he'd had missions with Rush before Icarus.

“With proper military backup. He _claimed_ he didn't realize he'd put himself in position to get ringed down alone. At the time, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He was new to the SGC, never been on a team before, so I let it go. But he did the same thing the next time we found one of Nirti's labs. I think he did it deliberately. He wanted a look at her research, Everett, before we would have shipped it all off to Area 52 and out of his hands. And his actions put the entire team at risk. People got hurt because of him.”

“Well, I don't think he whisked himself away this time, David. He knew how short of time we were before the ship jumped.”

“Did he have a weapon on him?” David asked.

“No. Just a radio, a kino remote, a pencil and one of those little notebooks he's always scribbling in. There's no signal from the remote, either. And we should be able to pinpoint it over half the planet.” 

“He's got to be shielded somehow. Ah,” David said, and Everett watched with him as Rush vanished from the stool he was perched on, recording readings. “Damn, that was quick.”

“So, there's no way the rest of us could get in there the way Rush did. Let's leave a kino to monitor and start searching the area around the gate for a hidden passageway into the rooms,” Everett said.

David nodded. “We've been through the town, but if we don't find him here,” he said, his eyes sweeping the surrounding area, “then we should check again.” 

“I want the four of us to stay close. If that wasn't an automatic intruder alert beam out, then we're being watched,” Everett said, hiding the unsettled feeling he'd just had. 

“Agreed,” David said. “Until James arrives with the skimmer, let's take a look at the area with the kinos we have.”

* * *

**Joint Base Andrews. Maryland.**

Jack O'Neill steadied Trish Armstrong when she stumbled a little after the two of them were beamed down to Andrews. It was more psychological than physical, that stumble. There was no momentum, no force on a person as they left the ship and landed on the ground, feet still planted under them. 

“You okay, Trish?” he murmured, as he let go of her upper arm. She tossed her long hair back over her shoulder.

“Fine, Jack. Let's go. I've waited a long time to see Doctor Rush for myself.” Her expression was tight on her pretty face, and tension was evident in her posture. She was angry, and she'd been angry for a long time. He hoped that bringing her wouldn't backfire, and stoke that fire instead of helping to put it out.

“Sir, Ma'am? I'm Major Chen and I'll escort you to Doctor Lam and her party. This way, please.” Jack returned the salute the tall man was giving him, and then waved a hand for him to proceed.

Down hallways they walked at a fast clip, until Chen stopped at a room labeled Examination Room Four. He nodded to them and added, “If you need anything, just hit 113 on the phone and I'll see to it that you get it, sir. Ma'am, General, welcome to the 977.”

Trish reached out to open the door but Jack put a gentle hand on her arm, stopping her. He waved Chen off and the Major left them. “Just... Hang on a sec, Trish.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I know exactly why you asked me to come here, Jack. You want me to see Doctor Rush in this misleading form as a child and to feel sorry for him. You want me to use my influence with the president and the IOA to stop David's project. It's not going to work.”

“Oh, I'm hoping it will. Because General Telford's probably right about Rush coming to warn us of some huge, honkin' danger, but that person in there is a child. It's time to let him go back to his family.”

“Let him be with his family? When my family has been torn apart and my husband dead because of what Rush did?” Her eyes started brimming, the tears that he knew were never too far away starting to slip down her face. 

“Malin's not that guy anymore, Trish. And Rush did save your daughter's life. Twice, if my old memory can be trusted.” 

She wiped the tears off her face with a fierce movement of both hands. “David knows him. Has known him for years and he's sure that Rush only saved her to curry favor with Homeworld Command. He doesn't care about Chloe. He's a horribly selfish man, and his actions were criminal.”

“Doctor Rush isn't here, though. This is a little guy who just happens to have some of his subconscious memories. He's an innocent.”

“David says you're wrong. Nicholas Rush is hiding in a kid's body and he's going to pay, Jack. He's not going to get away with kidnapping all those people and forcing them onto that wreck of a ship at the other end of the universe. He's going to pay for killing my husband.” She looked fierce, and vulnerable at the same time, and he felt for her, but Telford had sold her the wrong bag of goodies. She needed to see for herself what Malin was like, before letting Telford use her influence for his own agenda.

“So what made you decide to accept my offer today, Trish?” he said, keeping his tone of voice mild. “You just want to see him in pain because of the memory device he's wearing? Is that going to make you feel better?”

“Yes,” she hissed. “It will make me feel better knowing he's being punished. I know you and Alan were friends, Jack. I appreciate that, I do.” Her voice rose with conviction. “Can't you see that Alan deserves justice, Chloe deserves justice?” 

Jack said, “Not through Malin, though. And you know as well as I do that the IOA is looking into Doctor Rush to see if he should face criminal charges. I know all about the pressure you're putting on the president and Congress to bring him in for a hearing.”

Trish crossed her arms over her chest. “I deserve something, too, since Alan is gone and Chloe lost to me. I deserve to see Doctor Rush, in whatever form he's in, paying for what he did.”

Jack sighed. Alan Armstrong's widow had been clamoring for Rush's blood since Rush dialed the ninth chevron. It still wasn't clear to him if there had been any other choice or not. The scientists he'd asked to look into the problem, Carter, Lee, McKay, said there were too many variables to take into account to definitely say Rush had made the right call. Carter, though, leaned towards agreeing with Rush, so in hindsight Jack was willing to give the guy some slack. A decision had to be made within minutes during an attack. At least Trish still had her daughter, could visit her via the stones. 

Charlie's face flashed in his mind, and he ruthlessly slammed the door on those memories of his son. Of finding him shot with Jack's own gun. Sarah divorcing him. He'd lost his family and he knew in his gut how Trish felt, but her anger was misplaced. He hoped seeing Malin for herself would make her see that.

“Before we go in, some ground rules. Regardless of how you feel, you will not shout at or try to hurt that kid. Do I have your word, Trish?”

Her lips were a tight line, an ugly expression on her beautiful face, but she bit out, “I won't do anything, Jack. I just want to see him for myself.”

“Okay, then. Oh, in case you didn't know or forgot, he can't speak. He can understand you, though, so for crying out loud, watch what you say.” With that Jack opened the door and ushered her inside.

Doctor Lam turned from the monitor she was reading and put her finger to her lips, and nodded towards the figures on the gurneys. Mary Dupree, Malin, and an airman all looked asleep. 

Lam walked over to them, motioning to follow her to the far corner where Hank Landry was talking quietly on his phone; when he met Jack's eyes, he ended the call and slipped it into his pocket.

“Jack,” Landry said, quietly. “Seems we have a bit of a situation here.”

“Hank,” Jack acknowledged. “Don't we always? How's tricks back at the SGC? How's Walter?”

“That boy is a treasure.” Landry held out his hand and Jack shook it. 

“Be sure to tell him I said hi; I don't think I would have made it through my first day as head of the SGC without him,” Jack said, and turned to Trish. “Hank, this is Patricia Armstrong. Her late husband, Senator Alan Armstrong, was a friend of mine. Trish, this is General Hank Landry. He's the poor S.O.B who took over for me at the SGC when I got kicked upstairs.”

“I met your husband a time or two, Mrs. Armstrong,” Landry said. “He came by Cheyenne mountain to take a look at the program.”

Trish smiled graciously, her professional demeanor hiding the turmoil she'd shown out in the hall. “Taking a look to see that the American people's money wasn't being wasted, you mean.”

Landry just smiled like he was Buddha himself. “And this is my daughter, Doctor Carolyn Lam. She's in charge of Medical at the SGC, and she's Malin's personal physician.”

“Hello,” Carolyn said coolly. “I'd like to know your purpose in being here, Ma'am.”

That was Carolyn Lam, Jack thought. Direct as an arrow through a bulls-eye.

Trish didn't answer her, instead she walked over to the gurney where a small form was under a blanket. Jack let her go. She was grieving and angry and really, Jack blamed Telford for exploiting those feelings, convincing her to use her considerable influence to push for his agenda. Still, she was a decent person, and she was a mother. Jack hoped that Malin would be able to make his case for him just by being himself. 

“So,” Jack said brightly. “What's goin' on?” 

* * *

Jack decided that he'd heard enough. “I've heard enough,” he said, the talking heads on the monitor all turning to look at him. “The IOA feels its toes were stepped on by Doctor Lam and General Landry getting involved without their permission, yadda, yadda. Doctor Chang is outraged that his patient is now being treated by Doctor Lam without consulting with him, blah, blah, blah. You guys,” and he pointed at the large monitor where Strom and Woolsey and Chang had all been flapping their gums for the last thirty minutes, “get over it.”

There was a sound of outrage from Doctor Chang, but Jack held up one finger and made the sound that sometimes could stop Daniel from blathering on. Sometimes. It worked on Chang though, and he shut up. 

“Now, about the speech from Richard,” and he made air quotes, “great strides have been made on discovering what Doctor Rush is warning us about from his days as a glowy being because of switching to the higher settings on the memory device, yak, yak, yak, and for the greater good, it needs to keep happening, bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. I'm putting my foot down about that, and I'm prepared to call in every marker I have, including a few with the president.”

He turned to Doctor Lam. “Carolyn, are you prepared to take over medical supervision for Malin?”

“I am,” she said, her dark eyes serious. 

“Okay, I think we've heard everybody's two cents. Chang, you should be fired. You neglected to have Malin monitored about ascension and as Doctor Lam has explained, the memory device is obviously triggering him onto that path.”

He looked at Strom and Woolsey. “The IOA has been charged with Malin Tripp's safety. You've fallen down on the job. You guys owe Mary Dupree and Airman Drugov for contacting Doctor Lam. And yes, I'm aware of how the dreams the kid has been having since the device was upped are showing what looks like his experiences after he ascended.”

Woolsey looked troubled. “It was never our intention to harm Doctor Rush.”

Strom shook his head. “General O'Neill, you of all people should realize the tactical advantage Doctor Rush has given us by returning to Earth. And Doctor Chang has monitored his situation most thoroughly. To my knowledge, all of Doctor Rush's scans and vital signs showed no problem whatsoever with the device.”

“And yet, it still managed to hurt him. I've had one of those things stuck on my head, and I can tell you that it does hurt on the higher settings. And Carter, who is as tough as they come, couldn't take the highest setting for more than a few minutes. She told me she had a theory about why it hurt like that, after we came back from Hell, but I tuned out the technical talk.” Jack shrugged. “I was thinking about playing a round of miniature golf with Teal'c at the time. Anyway, I've contacted the Hammond. Carter's in a briefing right now but she's going to call us when she's done, explain that theory again.”

“I must protest any changes being made while General Telford is not present,” Strom said, but only halfheartedly. If the kid had ascended because of Telford ordering the memory device to be kicked up to higher settings, the shit would have hit the fan because who knows if Malin would have stuck around in his glowy form. No, the IOA knew that it was better to keep trying to find out what Malin's subconscious was trying to communicate while he was still human. 

“Oh, I intend to have a little chat with him about all of this when he gets back from Destiny. He can't be pulled from the stones right now,” Jack said. And by chat, he meant dressing down. He was going to lobby that Telford be removed from this project; the man had too many complicated associations with Rush.

Strom made a low grumble of discontent. “There is more at stake here than the comfort of one individual.”

Jack narrowed his eyes at Strom. “You guys have to know it's better to gamble that Malin's subconscious will find a way to let us know about the threat to Earth, rather than letting him go back to being ascended and watch him flit off to explore the mysteries of the universe. I mean, have you ever talked to Doctor Rush about the nature of Destiny's mission? It's surprising that he even bothered to descend back to human form, and I sure wouldn't count on him, if he does revert back to being Rush, sticking around to help out again once he's a glowy octopus.”

Strom and Woolsey looked at each other on the screen. Woolsey nodded and Strom said, “The IOA is in agreement that Doctor Rush should not be pushed into ascension. Doctor Chang's services will no longer be required, as Doctor Lam will be taking over.” 

Doctor Chang made a sour expression and ended his connection. 

“Doctor Lam, what are your recommendations about the memory recall device?” Jack turned to her. 

Carolyn said evenly, “No memory device for at least two weeks. In the last thirty minutes his readings are starting to come down about ascension. If in two weeks, if he's stable again, then it can be tried once more, but only at the lowest setting. He will be monitored with the ascendometer and if he starts to become unstable again, or he tells us that it's bothering him, then he's off of it permanently.”

Jack looked at Woolsey. “And what about the timetable to return him to his family? I say we send him back now.” Sly and Mary Siler had been doing what they could to get Malin returned to them, petitioning the IOA, trying to contact the president. They'd been stonewalled. 

Richard Woolsey got a mulish expression on his face. “General O'Neill, you've made your position on this quite clear in the past, but with these new, fascinating memories that have surfaced I'm afraid the boy will need to remain in IOA custody for the entire six months we were granted. We will reserve the right to end our custody before then, if no new results have been obtained. The ban on his seeing his adopted family will be kept. This is not negotiable, General.”

Strom smiled, wide and toothy, looking every bit like a mob hit man just given a new, juicy assignment. “Since the memory device may become permanently off the table, General Telford is authorized to use any other means to help Doctor Rush regain his lost memories.”

Jack stared at him, suspicious. “What means are we talking about?”

“Nothing that isn't safe,” Woolsey said, jumping in. “But for the time being the IOA is not prepared to discuss the particulars. I will say this, though. He will be monitored and if there is any difficulties, that strategy will be dropped. You have my word, Jack.”

“Mary Dupree remains with him and will report to me and Doctor Lam,” Jack said. “And that is not negotiable.”

“Agreed. And now I must take my leave,” Woolsey said. “Is the boy still sleeping? If he's awake I'd like to see him.”

“He's conked out. Kid's exhausted from wearing that thing,” Jack said, turning to make sure that Malin was still asleep. It looked like he was, and Trish was still standing by his gurney. She'd been there since walking into the room, like a crow on the cradle, an omen of ill-will, if the expression on her face was anything to go by. 

“Ah,” Woolsey said. “Please continue to copy me with all data. General,” he nodded to Jack. “General, Doctor Lam,” he added, his eyes flicking over to the corner where Hank Landry was standing next to Carolyn. “Mrs. Armstrong, I'm sure we'll be in touch. Ms. Dupree, Airman, your concerns have been noted. Doctor Strom.”

Jack wiggled his fingers in a half-hearted wave as Woolsey's image vanished.

“I, too, must take my leave.” Strom said, and also ended his connection.

Landry's phone rang, and he headed into the hall. Honestly, Jack was surprised he'd been able to ditch the SGC for this long. 

“Well,” Jack said, stretching, “I could use another sandwich. Anyone else feeling a little peckish?”

They took a break for snacks and drinks, and Jack asked about how Malin's last week had gone, listening, but also watching Trish. It had been a gamble to bring her here, but her influence had helped the IOA gain custody of Malin. He figured she should see for herself the consequences of that. 

Drugov said, “He's starting to wake up, General.”

Trish leaned closer to the gurney, and Jack walked over to her. “Give him some space,” he murmured. “You're a stranger to him.”

He gently tugged her back from where Malin was slowly blinking himself awake. Malin replanted his thumb in his mouth as his eyes opened fully. Sitting up, he saw Jack and wiggled out from under the light blanket and pulled off the ascension monitor from his head one handed and tossed it away from him with a disdainful look. He then elected to use both hands to boost himself over the railing, even as Mary said, “Wait, we'll take them down.”

Grabbing Jack's leg he started to try to climb him like he was a tree, so Jack just swooped him up and felt small arms around his neck. 

“Hello,” Jack said and Malin leaned away and signed back to him, his hands rapidly making shapes and then reshaping them. 

“A little help?” Jack said to Mary. 

“He says hello, that he doesn't like that thing on his head and that he's been feeling very bad in his head and tummy, but now he feels better and can you buy him more ice cream?” 

“That's up to Doctor Lam, kiddo. Let her check you out, okay? Also, cool PJs.” Malin was wearing light blue pajamas decorated with characters from a nursery rhyme.

Malin sighed, but made the okay sign with his fingers, and then tiredly made more gestures. 

Mary translated. “He says the PJs are a secret from General Telford because the general wouldn't like him wearing pajamas with cows jumping over the moon. Also, Malin says that cows can't really jump over the moon and that cats can't play the fiddle, but he likes his PJs because they were a present from the people in the house.”

“I think we should get Daniel some like that, whad'ya say, Malin?” Jack said. He squeezed his arms around the boy a little tighter, like maybe he could keep him here on this plane of existence. He flashed back to Daniel dying, to his best friend asking Jack to let him go, to let him ascend. He'd had to let Daniel go; he wouldn't let Malin get all glowy. 

Malin bobbed his head, a grin breaking out on his face. Then he finger spelled a word and looked expectantly up at Jack.

Jack laughed. “Yeah, we'll get some extra, extra large ones for Teal'c.”

He deposited Malin back down on the gurney. “Let's have Doctor Lam take a look at you. If she says okay, you can have that ice cream.”

Trish had been watching him and Malin the entire time, one hand covering her mouth, the other fisted over her heart. 

Carolyn busied herself doing medical stuff, checking the kid's vitals, listening to his lungs and heart and belly. Mary got him a bottle of water from the snack cart and handed it to him when Carolyn was finished and talking to the medic. Malin drank it down eagerly, and Mary fished out clothes and a few toys and books from the bag, spilling them on his gurney. 

Mary said something quietly to Malin and he nodded and slid off the gurney. She handed him his clothes and they walked over to the bathroom. He stepped inside and shook his head when she asked if he wanted any help and shut the door firmly. 

She looked over at Jack. “It's a good sign that he doesn't want me to help him in the bathroom like I've been doing for the last two days. He's usually very independent.”

There was a muffled snort from the big guy, the medic. “Ah, sorry, sir,” he said. “Just, that last bit is an understatement.”

“I want him to try to eat something. Applesauce, crackers, juice, and if he can hold that down, then a sandwich. We'll see about ice cream after that,” Carolyn said. 

“I'll call in it,” the medic said and picked up the phone. 

* * *

Landry walked back into the exam room and stood next to Jack, watching with him as Malin sat cross-legged on the gurney playing with a Rubik's cube, the ascendometer apparatus on his head. Half a sandwich was on a plate next to him, with a bite out of it. 

Malin looked up when he'd solved the puzzle in record time and his expression darkened when he saw Landry. His lower lip jutted out and suddenly he wanged the toy at Landry as hard as he could. 

Landry caught it. Malin had crossed his arms over his chest and was glaring as hard as a six-year-old could manage at Landry.

“Hey, what's up, buddy? Are you mad at General Landry?” Jack asked. 

Malin glanced at Jack and nodded forcefully. 

Landry raised his eyebrows. “I did order him to be zatted when he came through the gate,” he murmured softly. “Maybe he heard about that.”

Mary hurried over from where she had been conferring with Carolyn. She crouched down in front of Malin and began talking softly to the boy, who kept right on giving Landry the stink-eye while he signed to her.

After a few moments, Mary straightened up. “It's not because of being zatted, General,” she said, looking at both him and Landry. “Well, he's a little mad about that, but that's not why he threw that thing at you.”

Landry walked closer and handed the toy back to Mary. “So, let's have it out, man to young man. Why are you angry with me?”

Malin's fingers flew for long moments then tears started to overflow, and he stopped signing in order to wipe his eyes with both hands.

“Oh,” Mary said, and her eyes were full of pity. “He says that he's mad at you, General Landry, because you told him he could go home with his daddy and mom, and then you gave him to General Telford instead, and his daddy got hurt trying to keep him from having to go away. He says that you're his daddy's boss, his C.O. and if Malin is bad you'll put his daddy in jail.” Malin nodded, more tears running down his face, and tried to wipe his runny nose with the bottom of his T-shirt. Mary stopped him and handed him a tissue. 

“Son,” Landry said, dropping down so Malin could look him in the eyes. “It wasn't my idea for you to be away from your family. I know it's hard for you to understand, but the people in charge over me, my bosses, said that General Telford could keep you for a while. It's because of your dreams; they think what you dream about can help us fight an enemy.”

“Where did he get the idea that if he acts up Siler is going to be put in jail?” Jack asked, but he was pretty damn sure he already knew the answer.

Malin looked scared, and shook his head, not meeting anyone's eyes. 

“Malin, who told you that your daddy would go to jail if you were bad?” Landry asked, and put a hand on Malin's shoulder. “It's okay, you can tell us. I promise that Sergeant Siler will not be in trouble.”

Malin glanced at Jack, who nodded back encouragingly, he hoped, then the boy looked at Carolyn and Mary, before dropping his eyes. His hands started opening and closing.

“Is it supposed to be a secret?” Carolyn asked, moving closer to the gurney.

Malin nodded, and moved his thumb to his mouth, but didn't put it in, the edge of his thumbnail lightly touching his lips.

“Son,” Landry said, taking Malin's hand and holding it. “You're right. I am your daddy's C.O., his commanding officer. Now, when your daddy fought General Telford taking you away, he did break a rule. But I've already dealt with that. Your dad got a written reprimand, that's all. And I made sure that every last detail of why he struck a superior officer was listed. He was defending his boy, and the only reason I gave him that reprimand was so that General Telford _couldn't_ bring up charges later. I promise you, your daddy is not going to jail, not even if you throw a huge tantrum.”

Malin's face crumpled up and tears started again. He pulled his hand free from Landry's and started signing, Mary translating. 

“Malin says that he wants to go home and see his mother and daddy and his brothers and sister. He's tired of playing at the house even if he does like some of the people and he loves me and Drugov, but he doesn't like things being stuck on his head that hurt. He says that General Telford doesn't like him and told him if he's bad his daddy has to go to jail. General Telford said if he tells anybody then that's being bad, too, and his daddy wouldn't like going away for a long time to a jail.”

Malin's breath was hitching, and his shoulders were shaking with silent sobs; he dragged an arm across his eyes. 

“You did the right thing telling us, Malin,” and Jack gently pushed Malin's hair out of his eyes. “You still need to follow the rules at the house, stuff like picking up your toys, okay? But don't worry about your dad; he's going to stay at the SGC, and in a few months you will be going home,” Jack said, and Mary handed Malin another tissue. God damn David Telford anyway for blackmailing a six-year-old like that. His eyes caught Trish's as he picked up Malin and patted him on his back. She was frowning, but whether it was because of learning that her charming good friend was a bully, or because she still didn't believe Malin was a kid, he didn't have a clue. 

When Malin had stopped shaking and trembling against him, he swung him around to his hip and asked, “Hey, feel better now?”

Malin shrugged listlessly. His hand started to go to his mouth again, but Jack caught it. “How about some ice cream instead of a thumb? I want chocolate.” 

Looking a little interested, Malin pointed to Drugov and Mary and Carolyn and then, almost hesitantly, at Landry.

“You think we all should have some ice cream?”

Nodding, Malin looked curiously at Trish for the first time. Jack said, “She's a lady I know. She heard you were really smart about math and great at doing cartwheels, and she wanted to meet you.”

“No cartwheels today,” Carolyn said firmly. “I need to readjust the ascendometer headgear, too. I need absolutely accurate readings.”

“Back down you go, kiddo,” Jack said and put Malin on the gurney. Mary handed the little guy the Rubik's cube after twisting it around so it was jumble of colors. While Carolyn fiddled with the ascendometer and the medic got Malin's vitals, Landry played waiter and took ice cream flavor orders and picked up the phone. 

“His readings have come down two points,” Carolyn announced. “That pain that was so overwhelming but didn't affect his vitals and couldn't be helped by medication? I think, and I want General Carter's take on it, that pain is akin to phantom pain from a missing limb. Especially memories from being ascended, since Daniel Jackson also experienced similar pain when the memory device was being used by Osiris on him.” 

“I remember,” Jack said. “Danny had a hell of a headache afterwards. Malin seems better, though.”

“He's a kid. His brain is probably more resilient than an adult's, there's a lot more white matter, for example,” Carolyn said, and smiled as the reading changed again to show another point had dropped. 

Malin held up the puzzle cube, looking straight at Trish. Conflicting emotions rippled over her face before she schooled herself to a calm, almost stoic look and walked slowly over to the gurney. 

When she was right next to Malin, he touched the watch on her wrist. Mary said, “He's asking you to time him while he solves the Rubik's cube. He's very proud of how fast he can do it.”

Trish started to back away. “Oh, I don't--”

Jack interrupted her. “Kids are like that, aren't they, Trish? Wanting an adult's attention? Now, Doctor Rush, he could care less about asking for someone's approval.” Although that wasn't quite true, Jack remembered. He'd wanted Jack's approval for solving the Ninth Chevron. Still, Rush kept that part of himself tightly locked down for the most part. 

“David assured me that the boy was only a child physically; he's pretending--” she began, but hesitated when Jack caught her eye, glancing meaningfully towards Malin. 

“Pfftt. Do you see Doctor Nicholas Rush on that gurney?” Jack asked. “Seriously? Rush couldn't act his way out of a paperbag. I've seen him try. Believe me, his attempts to suck up to people like Alan fooled no one. Alan thought it was funny and I know he talked about that with you, on some of the occasions Rush met with him.” 

Malin rolled his eyes and dropped the cube on his lap to sign, his hands flashing. Mary said, “He says that he isn't Doctor Rush. He doesn't know why people get them mixed up all the time, because Doctor Rush is a grown up and he isn't. He doesn't know why he dreams about Doctor Rush, but he'd like to go see Doctor Rush's space ship.”

“Okay,” Trish said, her expression uncertain, as she shot a glare at Jack. “I'll time you.” She glanced at her watch and said, “Get ready, get set... Go.” 

Malin's fingers flew as he configured the puzzle, and Jack thought he'd probably gone as far as he could with changing Trish Armstrong's mind. 

* * *

**The Planet of Missing People**

“Check the remote,” Everett ordered James. Destiny should have dropped out by now, he thought. In another few minutes the last dregs of sunset would darken down into twilight, and then darkness. And they hadn't found any trace of Rush. 

James spun the dial. She looked over at Everett and shook her head. “Sorry, sir. This gate must not be in range.”

“Four hours, then,” David said. “Until Destiny can jump back and make contact.”

“Let's keep searching,” Everett ordered, and James moved the kino skimmer down the street, Greer taking point and David and himself on either side of the skimmer. They'd held this pattern for hours, James sweeping for life signs and using the kinos, checking the video footage while the rest of them swept through buildings and houses. 

Another hour passed, then two more. The town was eerily dark, and the sky thick with stars, a wide band of this galaxy's spiral arm taking up most of the middle. 

“How long, Everett?” David asked quietly, shining his flashlight around the room of the small house they were checking. “Before you decide Rush is gone for good.”

“We'll burn that bridge when we come to it,” Everett said, using his rifle butt to tap on walls, checking for hidden passages. 

David made a sound between amusement and annoyance. He walked over to face him and put a hand on Everett's shoulder. “Mangled Tauri-Jaffa sayings aside, it's time to start making a time table. Destiny can't stay here forever, Everett.”

“Maybe he won't have to,” Greer said from the doorway, and Everett spun around. “A light just came on inside that building over there.”

“Sir!” James voice came over the radio. “We've got a human life sign.”

* * *

“Sir,” Greer said behind him. “I'll go.” 

Everett shook his head and stepped inside the building. On the far side by a wall, someone was prone on the floor. Someone with bare feet and shaggy hair. They'd found him, but Everett felt no sense of relief. “Watch our six, Sergeant. I'll take point.”

Cautiously, Greer and David covered him while Everett moved carefully towards where Rush was lying face down on a roughly textured floor. He was alive, according to James' scan, but he hadn't responded when David had tried the radio. 

The two story building was still the only one that had a light spilling out its windows, a brilliant blue-white, and they'd found Rush in a cavernous room that had what looked like vehicle parts stacked up on large shelves and oily looking stains on the floor. There were tools scattered on benches, again, some tall, some shorter, again as if to accommodate beings of different heights. 

David said into the quiet, “He could be bait, Everett. Whoever took him wanted us to find him here. Watch yourself.”

Everett dropped to one knee beside Rush and felt for his pulse. It felt slow to him, and a little fluttery, like butterflies had when he'd trapped them in his hands as a kid back in Minnesota. Shifting his hand from Rush's neck, he rolled him over. Rush's eyes were closed. Everett frowned and felt Rush's forehead, alarmed at the heat he could feel. 

“He's unconscious and he's got a high fever. Pulse is kind of weak,” Everett said. Greer started towards him, but Everett held out his hand. “Stay back. Whatever's wrong with him might be contagious. I'm already exposed, so I'll carry him. Tell James to do what she can to make more space with the skimmer between him and me and the rest of you.” He swung his rifle around so it rested against his back, and slid his arms under Rush's knees and back.

Grunting, he hefted Rush up, the other man dead weight in his arms, his head falling back against Everett's arm. He stood up, staggering a few steps as he got his balance. David covered him, his stance watchful, stepping away from the door as Everett approached. Greer had already gone back into the street. 

James was reconfiguring the skimmer, panels unfolding and locking into place, making it longer. Like that it couldn't maneuver very easily in Destiny's corridors, but she could make it go back to its default shape of fairly short and narrow once they were back on board.

He walked as fast as he could to the skimmer and laid Rush down at the back of it, then boosted himself up next to Rush. Greer settled next to James, and took the kino remote from her. David dropped into a crouch behind the two in the bench seat, facing Everett, his eyes checking the area, a grim expression on Eli's face, weapon ready. David had been right. Whoever had released Rush had wanted him found.

“James, head for the gate,” Everett yelled, and slid Rush's greenish-brown T-shirt off, hoping to cool him down. Rush was still wearing that dingy long sleeved shirt, trapping the fever heat, and he worked on freeing Rush's arms from it.

The skimmer rose in the air a few more feet and then made an arc as James headed them back to the gate. Their gate. The alien gate and surrounding area was still under surveillance from kinos. One more hour, and they'd be able to gate back to Destiny. He hoped TJ could do something to help Rush. He didn't much like the way the other man was breathing; it was too shallow, too irregular. 

The skimmers had the same anti-gravity tech that allowed the kinos to float along, but were much, much stronger. They were fast, able to go about thirty miles an hour and James yelled to hang on as she floored it. Everett pulled Rush up mostly into his lap, holding him securely. The last thing they needed was Rush falling off and breaking his neck. 

Rush's bare skin felt like the outer rock walls on Icarus had felt, dry and hot. Not even the breeze created by the skimmer's movement or removing some of his clothes had cooled him off. He needed water, but giving it to him while he was unconscious wasn't going to work. 

“Everett,” David called to him. “James said there's a thermometer, and alcohol and soap in the first aid kit. Wash your hands with water and soap, and then rub a little of the alcohol on your hands. Don't put the alcohol on Rush, she said. It won't stop the fever.” David lobbed the kit towards him, and it landed just inches away from Rush.

He unzipped the pack, small enough that James could carry it in her tac vest, and took out the thermometer, an old fashioned one that didn't rely on batteries, and debated shoving it in Rush's mouth. Shaking his head, and with memories of his mom taking his temperature, he put it under Rush's arm instead, cursing to himself when he took it out several minutes later. He used his flashlight to see, Rush caged within his arms. 104 degrees, which meant his actual temp was at least a point higher. “Damn it, Rush,” he growled. But Rush didn't open his eyes to roll them or look at him like he couldn't believe Everett had even graduated from high school. 

He pulled Rush up higher in his lap and pinned down his Rush's jean clad legs with his own, making sure Rush was secure before wetting his hands and scrubbing them with that precious sliver of real soap. He poured some of the water on Rush's chest, but he knew it wasn't going to be enough. 

He shouted to David, “We've got to cool him down. Tell James to take us to where the crew got the water. His fever's 105.” He dribbled a little of Brody's strong alcohol on his hands. This was probably futile, especially if whatever had caused Rush's illness was airborne, but he'd do what he could. Memories surfaced of missions on the Milky Way planets he and his team had gated to where the Priors' plague, that little gift from the Ori, had decimated the populations. Just another flavor of nightmares, for those hellish times in the middle of the night. What had Rush called it? When he'd been so sweet to Everett and had comforted him after another of his repeat nightmares? Ah, the Witching Hour. He hoped that today wouldn't end in more nightmare fodder, with Rush dying in his arms. 

David nodded, turned and relayed the message to James. She veered the skinner off to the right towards a bank of treelike plants, dim in the headlights.

* * * 

“Keep back,” Everett warned once the skimmer had settled close to a line of what Volker had named in Eli's honor as Trees-ish. James had told him there was a large pool of water just past them. “Anybody else feeling bad, feeling feverish?” He shifted Rush so he was lying on his back next to the edge of the vehicle and began unbuckling Rush's belt. Rush's feet were already bare, since he'd taken his boots off before sliding into rooms below the stargate. 

“No, sir,” James said, projecting her voice. “What about you, sir?”

“I'm fine. Greer, David?”

They weren't experiencing any problems either. Everett unzipped Rush's jeans, yanked them down and off him. He unbuckled the watch on Rush's wrist. Then he made short work of unlacing his own boots and took off his flak vest, jacket, trousers, and shirt. He left his boxers on.

“Sir?” James said, shining her flashlight for him so he could see. “Are you going in the water with him?”

“It's fairly deep, right? I'm going to need to hold him up. And I can fight in wet clothes, but they can slow you down, bind you.” He gave her a nod. “Keep checking for Destiny's return, watch the alien gate and town. I don't want any surprises at the last minute. Greer, David--”

“We got your back, Colonel,” Greer said. “How's Rush?”

“Not good. Still burning up. Still out of it.” After slinging his rifle onto his back, Everett stepped off the skimmer, and James caused it to rise so it was easier to scoop Rush up, his head falling back against Everett's arm, his body limp. “I hope you wake up soon with this fever gone and give me hell for stripping you down to your boxers,” Everett murmured.

Rush didn't respond. Everett felt his chest tighten and hoped like hell that the crew who'd returned to Destiny were all right. He started walking under the tall foliage. Rush felt heavy, like responsibility, like guilt. Like regret. 

David shone a light so Everett could pick his way to the edge of the pool. He supposed it was pretty, since there were all kinds of flowery shrubs around him, but he was more interested in the rocky ledge that bordered this side of the pool. He could hear the water gurgling into it, hear some kind of night insect trilling in the dark. There were patches of something that had a golden glow on some of the rocks, but he avoided stepping there. The air was thick with the sweet scent of those night blooming flowers, and there were trails of vines hanging down from the sort of trees that surrounded the large creek. They were lit up with a rosy phosphorus glow, so he could see somewhat in the dark. He knew from James' reports earlier that this pool was much deeper in the center, and the water had tested pure. He hoped like hell that there was nothing lurking there that would attack them. 

Rush was so god damned hot against him. The son-of-a-bitch had better not die or be brain damaged from this fever. He lowered Rush down, the man's arms and legs falling into a graceless sprawl, and Everett positioned his rifle on the wide flat rocks. He sat down and swung his legs into the cool water and cautiously lowered himself into it. It came up to his shoulders but the bottom was flat here. He pulled Rush carefully into the water and held him tightly against him with one arm and with his free hand he began scooping water over Rush's head until his hair and beard were drenched. Rush's head lolled back against his shoulder, his feet and legs floating free. Everett made sure his own feet were well planted on the rocky bottom, not wanting to lose his balance.

The coolness of the water was refreshing but not frigid. At any other time, Everett would have enjoyed the opportunity to swim around a little, feel real water against his skin instead of the warm mist of Destiny's showers. Instead, his mind was on the crew, wondering if anybody else was sick like Rush. Whatever this was, the fever and unconsciousness had happened in the last seven hours. Unless Rush hadn't reported feeling sick so he could continue to study the alien gate. 

His lips next to Rush's ear, he said, “Would you do that, Ace? Ignore a fever and getting sick, keeping it to yourself so you could have a few more precious minutes to be like a kid on Christmas morning with all that new, shiny alien tech?” He could hear the low growl of suspicion in his voice, the accusation that Rush had put them all in danger, including himself, the reckless bastard, in order to selfishly satisfy his curiosity.

Rush hadn't seemed sick, though, and Everett's eyes had been on him constantly. He hadn't looked flushed, or rubbed his head like a headache was blooming. He hadn't become irritated and snappish, although he had frequently prodded at his neck and upper shoulder muscles, but then, he did that all the time. Everett remembered the hard knots of tension he'd unraveled for Rush during their honeymoon week, before the rest of the crew were released from stasis. He probably needed someone to massage his muscles every night; obviously he was shit at doing it for himself. 

Still, no one else had reported being sick, and after the hard lesson they'd learned from drinking the contaminated water from the ice planet, Everett thought he could trust the rest of the crew to act responsibly. Maybe even Rush. Watching countless crew members die on Eli's kino footage had shook him up, too, because Everett had seen the expression on his face when Rush hadn't realized he was being observed. 

What if this wasn't a virus or some kind of bacterial infection? What if Rush's body was reacting to the beam or whatever it was that had transported him out of the underground rooms? What if it had so damaged his mind that he wasn't going to be able to recover?

“Christ, quit worrying me to death and just come around, will you?” Everett whispered into Rush's ear and tightened his hold on him. “Recite a few algorithms, spout off some code in Ancient, or sing something in Gaelic; hell, give me a report on your analysis of the harmonics in the shields, okay?”

Rush didn't respond. The silence from him was unnerving. Even when Rush wasn't talking, everything about him, the way he held himself, his expressions and body language, his eyes, communicated his opinions, at least to Everett. He missed all that, and it bothered him to see Rush as a limp, lifeless doll. Like he'd been in the neural interface chair. Or that coma.

Everett put a hand up to Rush's forehead. Still too hot, but, maybe, not as hot as before. He dribbled more water over Rush's head, and in the dim pinkish glow from the vines he watched the rivulets make wayward paths down Rush's cheeks.

* * *

It was Greer who came to tell him that Destiny was late. Against him, Rush had been starting to come to for the last five minutes, moving his arms and legs on his own, his eyes fluttering. Everett had felt a little relieved, by that, but just a little. He'd feel much better if he knew Rush hadn't fried his brain.

Greer crouched down, his eyes on Rush, staying back from the edge of the water.

“How late?” 

“Half hour, sir. How's Rush?” Greer shone a light on Rush's face. “Hey, his eyes were open but he shut them again. He's reacting to the light. Has he said anything?”

“No. I think his fever's down a little.” Everett put a hand on Rush's forehead. Yeah, he was pretty sure his fever had dropped. “No sign of any activity from the alien gate or in the town?”

“None. James has started recalling the kinos. She's leaving one between the gate and town for now. Man, those little balls can really fly.”

“Greer, grab Rush's shirts, and my shirt and bring them back here, we're going to need them,” Everett said. A sound of pain escaped from Rush, his body tightening up under Everett's arms.

“Got it,” Greer said. “Something wet to keep him cooled down once we're headed to the gate.” He jogged back towards the skimmer and returned in a few minutes, dropping the clothes on the ground..

Rush lifted his head from Everett's shoulder and a high panicked sound escaped from him. “No, oh, no, oh, no,” he chanted, and then began struggling to free himself.

“I've got you, settle down,” Everett said, but his efforts to reassure him were a dismal failure. So what else was new about dealing with this man, he thought to himself. “Damn it, Rush, stop it.” He wanted to take Rush to the ledge, sit him up on it for a moment, let him calm the fuck down, but it was all he could do to keep his footing with the way Rush was moving.

Rush was twisting and using his elbows, kicking out and his breathing was rapid. 

“Need a hand?” Greer said. “I bet he thinks he's back with the Nakai. You know, being in the water like this.”

At the mention of the aliens who had taken him, Rush put on a new burst of energy and managed to twist away, making Everett lose his footing and fall under the surface. He came back up, and shook the water out of his hair and wiped his eyes. Rush hadn't stood up, he was floundering and his movements were taking him towards the deeper water. 

“Rush, you're okay,” he called, but Rush kept awkwardly fumbling toward the middle of the pool. “It's Young and Greer, not the Nakai. Swim back, okay?” He didn't want to panic Rush by grabbing him if he could avoid it. Let him get his own bearings first and maybe they could avoid him fighting Everett. Rush didn't acknowledge him, just kept moving further away. 

Everett sighed. Jesus Christ, he was a lot of work, but then Greer shone the light on them and Everett could see that Rush's eyes were panicked and his mouth was at the water's level. He was bobbing, but not making any progress towards coming to the shallower side.

 _Fuck!_ Everett dove under the water towards him. Rush was drowning. It wasn't like the movies with someone yelling help, and splashing to call attention to themselves. Drowning was almost always a silent process.

He fell back on old training and turned Rush by his knees, well below Rush's grasp, then surfaced, his hands controlling Rush's movements and put him in a carry hold. Since Rush was Rush, he locked his arms together and just kicked their way back to the ledge and stood up. Rush was still trying to fight his way free, but Everett had him this time and he was not letting him go. 

“He okay?” Greer commented, still shining the light on them. 

“I don't know. I don't know if he has a clue about what's going on.” Maybe if Rush could see his face, it would help him settle down. In one swift move he released Rush and grabbed him by his biceps and turned him so they were eye to eye and then relocked his arms around him. Rush seemed too startled by Everett's actions to keep trying to twist away.

“Rush, do you know who I am?” he said, and relaxed a little when he saw comprehension fill Rush's eyes.

“Colonel, ah, God. I tried to radio you, to warn you,” Rush said. “You didn't respond. Did they take anyone else off the ship?”

“The Nakai,” Greer said, and it wasn't a question.

“Aye, them. They boarded the ship and they were hunting me. I tried to warn you, I did,” Rush said. “I, I don't remember what...” he sighed and started to go limp and his eyes turned hazy.

“He doesn't seem to realize I'm here,” Greer said. “I bet he's talking about when we had those damn ticks on us. He said in the infirmary that he thought the Nakai had come through the gate and gotten on the ship and were looking for him. He never said he'd tried to radio you, though,” Greer added thoughtfully.

Everett shook Rush a little. “Stay with me. You're okay, the Nakai aren't here. You're safe.”

Rush's eyes glazed over again.“We have to go,” he said, his breathing rapid. “We have to get out of this tank. I can hear them; they're coming and they will shred your mind, Colonel.”

“He can hear them? Maybe tell when they're around?” Greer said, scanning the area. “Do you suppose they've tracked us again to here?”

“No,” Everett said. “The insects, the racket they're making. That's what's reminding him of them.” He remembered the chittering, hissing sounds the Nakai had made when he'd been on their ship in a Nakai body. 

Greer shifted the rifle so it rested easily in his arms. “Well, just in case, Doc, I won't let the bastards get us.”

“We're on a planet, Rush. Remember the planet with the alien gate?” Everett asked, and loosened his hold on him, putting the man's arms around his neck to help him keep his balance. “Hold on to me. I'm going to get you out of here.” He couldn't risk just pinning Rush's hands to the ledge while he boosted himself up. Rush was flashing back, not in his right mind, and Everett didn't trust him at all. He might try to break away and get himself in trouble in the water again.

If he could avoid Greer breaking their semi-quarantine to give him a hand lifting Rush up, he would. TJ would put him and Rush into an isolation room, no sense in having Greer be stuck there, too.

Rush stared at him as Everett stooped a little to grab Rush's hips. “Colonel?” he said, with such doubt in his voice. “Are you...?”

And then Rush kissed him, tightening an arm around Everett's neck, one hand grasping Young's hair. His face felt hot against Everett's, his lips soft. Surprise, a flush of longing, and then for one or two seconds he was kissing him back because he'd wanted this and Rush was giving it to him, but then all the reasons why he _couldn't_ do this flooded through him and he pulled away. 

“I think you're real, aye?” Rush said, his eyes narrowing. “They aren't so good at skin to skin tactile hallucinations, and they don't understand why humans put their mouths on each other. I think you're real.”

“Damn straight I'm real.” Behind him Greer had choked. 

“We have to escape before they come back,” Rush whispered.

“Rush, can't you see we're on a planet? There's tree...things here – Jesus, he sounded like Eli or Brody – ;this is just a deep place in the creek where we got water for the ship.”

Urgently, his breath hot in Everett's ear, his voice whisper soft, he said, “They can fool your mind, Colonel. In reality, we're in a tank of water on their ship. Try to see past the illusions, all right? You can do it once you know the truth.” Out of his head with a fever or not, the man managed to sound both disdainful and condescending. 

Everett was torn between irritation and worry with a touch of amusement at the ridiculousness of this situation. “You're sick, do you understand that? You're running a high fever and I don't know if this is a fever hallucination or just you having one hell of a flashback induced left turn away from reality, but we're going back to Destiny very soon. You want out of the water? Hang on, I'm going to boost you up.”

His attempt was futile because Rush wrapped his legs around Everett's waist. “No,” Rush said, and his expression, Jesus. Framing Everett's face with his hands, he said firmly, in hushed tones, “We can't be separated. We go together.” 

Everett sighed and let his forehead rest against Rush's. He felt a warm kernel of something growing in his chest, fondness, maybe. Admiration at how determined Rush was to escape. The Nakai scared Rush shitless, he knew they did, but he never stopped trying to escape from them or fight them off. Even when they were only in his head. 

“Greer, I think we need a moment. Check back in with James and see if Destiny's address is showing up yet. Oh, and bring back the thermometer.” 

“Yes, sir,” Greer said, and jogged back towards the skimmer.

Cautiously, Everett said, “Doctor Rush? How are you feeling?” He wanted to roll his eyes after he said it because using Rush's title was doing nothing to stem that warm feeling. He'd felt something like it before, of course. There'd been plenty of times that Rush being Rush had amused him, or he'd been full of gratitude for the man's ability to pull something off and save their bacon. But, still, this felt different. Not the lust of the bond resurfacing after he and Rush had starved it out, but undeniably, he felt a connection to Rush. 

He'd keep that to himself, though. Rush wanted distance between them, or his logical, non-fevered mind did. This time right now? It didn't mean anything. Rush was out of his head, and Everett would just humor him until he could turn him over to TJ.

He'd put his arms around Rush, partly because he didn't want him to suddenly let go and fall under the water and partly because it had felt like where his arms were supposed to be. Rush sagged a little against his chest, and Everett had a flash of memory of them in the stasis pod, how Rush had trusted that Everett wouldn't let him go and make him lose his balance. Smiling a little at the memory, Everett asked again, “Doctor Rush, I need you to tell me how you're feeling.”

“Never mind me,” Rush said tiredly, “what have they done to you? How long ago did they take us from Destiny?”

“One, they haven't done anything to me, and two, no idea. But Destiny is coming back for us. For you.”

“Are you sure?” Rush sounded wistful, his eyes wide and – fuck. 

“We weren't... I wasn't going to leave you behind. Now, how are you feeling? How about drinking some water?” He shifted so he could reach the water bottle Greer had brought him, and twisted the lid off, his arms still pressing against Rush. He didn't trust him enough to let him go. 

Rush shrugged against him. “I've felt better. Hot. Cold. They must have interrogated me again. I no can remember, though.”

“Here. You need water.” He managed to get Rush to take it and he emptied the bottle. Everett took it back and tossed it on the rock ledge.

“Thank you,” Rush said, and in the dim glow of the vines Everett could see him grimace.

“Any pain? Your head, anywhere?”

“Aye, the bad heidache. And I'm a bit knackered, actually,” and he closed his eyes, his head coming to rest on Everett's shoulder. “We should go before they come back, Colonel.”

Everett tightened his arms around Rush, who had let his own arms drop down. “You let me worry about that, Doctor Rush. Just rest for now.”

He was asleep or passed back out in less than thirty seconds.

* * * 

“How late are they?” Everett asked Greer, and pulled the thermometer out from under Rush's arm and handed it to Greer. He stretched his back, shifting Rush a little. James had passed along that there were some rocks further down that acted like natural steps, and he'd moved Rush to there, where the water only came to their waists, so the reading would be accurate.

Greer glanced at his watch. “At least an hour and twenty minutes, sir. Destiny will be popping out of FTL any time now.”

“They've run into trouble,” Everett said.

“Well, sir, with Rush here and Eli back on Earth, they're a little short of manpower on the Science team. But Lisa and Brody and Volker, they'll figure out whatever needs to be done.”

“At least they've got a full tank of gas.” He knew Greer would know what he meant by that. If they had to fight there should be plenty of power for the shields and the weapons system. 

Greer was shining his light on the thermometer. “103.7.”

“You add a degree, so it's more like 104.7. Damn it. It's gone up again.” The last time he'd taken it, about twenty minutes ago, it had dropped to 103.4 including the extra degree. Stepping into deeper water, he started scooping water back on Rush's head. 

“How are you doing, sir?”

“I'm not sick. I'm inclined to think it was only Rush who was exposed to some virus or pathogen or whatever.”

“Telford and James are fine, too. But, uh, you've been in much, much closer contact with Rush than them or me.” Greer's voice held a slightly teasing tone, and Everett rolled his eyes.

“Sergeant, he was out of his head.” 

“My lips are sealed, sir. Only, I'd enjoy telling him what he did just to see the look on his face. Permission to do that, sir? In private, of course.”

Everett's lips twitched. “Permission granted, but wait till he's better. And I wouldn't be averse to having a kino nearby, as long as the footage was destroyed after I see it.”

“Got it,” Greer said, and shot a wry look at Rush, who had gone back to sleep against him again after waking up for a few minutes a half hour ago. “What was he mumbling about earlier?”

“Something about a door in time, a door of time. He was speaking in Ancient a little. He seemed to be having a debate with himself about opening it or not.” Everett remembered something similar had happened in the dream simulation where he'd taken advantage of Rush sleepwalking. TJ or actually, Destiny, had translated it for him. A door of time. He looked down at Rush's sleeping face and wondered if there were secrets Rush was keeping from him. Correction. There was, in terms he'd heard Rush use before, a non-zero probability that Rush had secrets he kept from Everett. But then, the reverse was true also. He hadn't told Rush the truth about what he'd done to him in that dream simulation from hell. 

Rush didn't like sharing speculations. He preferred to have conclusive data before coming to Everett. And questioning Rush about a vague suspicion Everett had wasn't going to help maintain the trust that had been built between them. Maybe he'd ask Eli to search the data base for anything regarding a door of time. Discreetly. 

Being here, in the water, listening to the night sounds in the dim light of the glowing vegetation, especially when Rush was quiet or asleep, he'd been doing some thinking. Rush had been one of the crew who'd had a tick jump to him back before the Lucian Alliance had invaded the ship. He'd run through the ship from his hallucinations of the Nakai; he stabbed Camile and attacked Greer and Scott, thinking they were aliens intent on capturing him again. But he'd apparently tried to reach out to Everett, to warn him the Nakai had boarded the ship. 

He'd turned to Everett for help. He'd also come to him, and not directly to O'Neill, about having Telford's memories show up in his dream. Those things together seemed to mean that Rush had been trying to cooperate with Everett, maybe even that he trusted him. And then Everett had screwed things up when the Alliance had taken Rush and later boarded the ship. 

Truth was, Everett hadn't trusted Rush at all when he'd come to him about Telford's memories. It had all fallen into place, he'd thought. Rush was the Alliance mole, and the sneaky bastard had thought of a way to discredit Telford and report back to whatever House he'd joined, with Everett as his patsy. 

He stood by his decision to keep Telford in Rush's body, though, once Rush was clearly shown to be innocent. There was a lot more to consider than Rush's life, and if the Alliance had wanted to kill Rush immediately, they'd have shot him dead before leaving Earth. No, he'd known the Alliance had found a use for Rush and would try to exploit him, keeping him alive.

Everett had bungled their defense against the Alliance. He'd wanted so badly to not lose anyone, Telford and Rush, to start with, that he'd put them all in danger. He should have stuck with the plan and vented the air immediately in the gate room, disabling the Lucians if not outright killing them. Maybe they could have resuscitated Telford. He should have taken the chance, but he'd dithered too long before giving the order.

Later, in the control interface room, Rush had only said what Everett already knew, but didn't want to have to accept. In order to take back the ship, they were probably going to lose some of the crew. Rush hadn't deserved Everett's attempt to put a fist in his face for pointing that out; luckily, the rest of the science team had stopped him long enough for his better sense to come back.

Greer motioned towards the skimmer and Everett nodded. After Greer had disappeared, Everett whispered into Rush's hair, “You know, you open your mouth and say things when anyone else with an ounce of self preservation would keep their mouth shut. But what you tell me, you're not wrong, even if I don't want to accept it. I'm going to try to remember that in the future, and not hold it against you for telling me what I already know and don't like.”

Rush, of course, didn't say anything. 

“You're going to be all right. Destiny is going to be back any minute and TJ's going to make your fever go away. Your brain is going to work just fine, and we're going to have that professional relationship you wanted. You just wait and see, Rush.”

* * *

James came running up, and dropped to her knees next to the pool.

“Sir,” she said. “We've got company.” She turned the remote so he could see it. The monitor showed a ship, graceful with its bullet shape, in the distance hovering next to the alien gate. “They just came through.”

“And Destiny?”

“We're still locked out. Sir, there's three other addresses we could dial.” She switched screens so he could see them for himself.

He said calmly, “Destiny might not be in range of those planets and lighting up our gate might alert the aliens that we were here. Destiny might jump back and send a team in to investigate when we don't dial them. We might set them up for an ambush.”

“And we might get caught, sir, if we stay.” She looked at Rush. “If we go to another planet, we take a risk of not being able to keep him cooled down. Greer said his fever was still too high to leave the water. Also, since the aliens have gate tech, they can probably tell where we gate to and follow us, if they wanted to find us.”

“Well, Lieutenant, sounds like we're in a pickle,” he said, and something in his tone must have reassured her, because her expression relaxed.

“You've been in pickles like this before, sir?” she asked, a small fleeting smile crossing her face.

“Oh, thirty, forty times.” He shifted Rush in his arms a little. Rush was most at risk here. He needed medical attention and Destiny had locked out other worlds when they'd dropped out of FTL for a reason. He wasn't sure these new addresses were even the same ones. At least here, in the water, they had kept his fever from climbing to the point of definite brain damage or death. 

“Sir, what are your orders?” James looked at him, steady, trusting him to make this work. Rush stirred in his arms. What would Rush say, Everett wondered, if it was one of the others sick with a fever instead of him. Stay, or go?

Stay or go. Risky both ways.

“Here's what we're going to do, James,” Everett said, with one more look down at Rush.

 

* * *


End file.
